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THE 

IE  UNTVERSnY  LTORARy 


WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 


THE 

HOME  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
OF  MODERN  KNOWLEDGE 


Editors  of 

THE  HOME  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

OF  MODERN  KNOWLEDGE 

Rt.  Hon.  H.  A.  L.  Fisher,  M.A.,  F.B.A. 

Prof.   Gilbert  Murray,  Litt.D.,  LL.D.,  F.B.A. 

Pbof.  J.  Arthur  Thomson,  M.A.,  LL.D. 


For  list  of  volumes  in  the  Library  see  end  of  booh. 


WARFARE    IN 
ENGLAND 


% 
HILAIRE   BELLOC 

AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION, 
"  THE  ROAD  TO  ROME,"  ETC. 


THORNTON  BUTTERWORTH  LIMITED 
15  BEDFORD  STREET,  LONDON,  W.C.2 


First  Published September  xgi^ 


All  Rights  Reserved 

MADE   AND  PRINTED  IN  GREAT  9RITAJ?? 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 

I      THE         STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY         OP 

ENGLAND  .... 


II  THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST 

III  THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST 

IV  MEDIEVAL   WARFARE — I 

V  MEDIEVAL    WARFARE — II 

VI  MEDIEVAL    WARFARE — III 

VII  THE    CIVIL    WARS 

VIII  THE   SCOTCH    WARS    . 
NOTE   ON   BOOKS 


9 
50 
90 
116 
139 
166 
205 
242 
255 


THE  MAIN  FEATURES  OF 

ENGLISH  MILITARY 
TOPOGRAPHY 


Frontispiece] 


Bartholcmtn,,£dif,C 


Map  1  {^see  over) 


Map  1. — Frontispiece 

THE  MAIN   FEATURES   OF  ENGLISH  MILITARY 
TOPOGRAPHY 

Natural  lines  of  advance  to  London :  the  nodal  point 
because  the  lowest  bridge  on  the  Thames  from  Dover  and 
the  main  Continental  entry  with  alternative  Kentish  ports, 
having  Canterbury  for  their  common  depot :  whence  the  line 
at  the  obstacle  of  the  Medway  suggests  the  strategical  point 
of  Rochester,  while  from  the  alternative  entry,  Portsmouth 
and  Southampton,  two  other  roads  may  lead  to  London. 

Also  natmal  lines  of  advance  from  London  to  the  North  by 
the  way  east  of  the  Pennines,  crossing  the  Trent  at  Notting- 
ham (or  Newark),  and  the  Aire  by  two  passages  which 
Pontefract  defends.  So  to  the  main  depot  of  the  North, 
York,  the  passage  of  the  Tyne  at  Newcastle,  and  of  the  Tweed 
■at  Berwick. 

Or  by  the  west  through  the  gap  of  Stockport,  defended  by 
Manchester,  to  where  Lancaster  holds  the  gap  between 
Morecambe  Bay  and  the  Hills  over  Shap  Fell  to  the  Valley 
of  the  Eden;  with  a  branch  to  Chester,  the  port  for 
Ireland  and  the  gate  of  the  road  round  the  north-west  hills. 


WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY  OF 
ENGLAND 

The  military  history  of  any  country  is 
largely  determined  by  its  Topography,  that 
is,  by  the  nature  of  its  soil :  where  run  its 
ranges  of  hills  :  how  high,  steep,  or  barren 
these  may  be  :  the  situation  of  its  better 
lands,  with  their  chief  towns  :  the  position, 
depth  and  rapidity  of  its  rivers,  etc.,  etc. 

The  importance  of  such  features  lies  in  this  : 
that  by  such  features  are  aided  or  impeded 
the  march  of  armies. 

Of  two  armies  organised  each  to  destroy 
the  fighting  power  of  the  other  (whether  by 
breaking  its  cohesion,  by  cutting  off  its  supplies, 
or  in  any  other  fashion),  one  at  least  must  be 
led  to  meet  the  other,  and  in  nearly  all  his- 
torical cases  both  are  led  out  to  meet  each 
other.  Now,  the  "  leading  "  of  an  army,  the 
arrangement  of  its  progress,  differs  in  many 
9 


10  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

material  points  from  other  kinds  of  travel : 
it  has  difficulties  peculiar  to  itself,  and  must 
consult  special  conditions  of  its  own.  It  has, 
therefore,  received  the  special  name  of 
Strategy,  which  is  simply  the  Greek  for  "  leading 
an  army." 

An  army,  being  a  great  body  of  men  gathered 
together  on  one  spot  in  far  larger  numbers 
than  that  spot  would  naturally  support, 
must  artificially  arrange,  as  a  rule,  for  a 
supply  of  food.  Even  if  it  be  small,  so  that 
some  densely  populated  country  through 
which  it  is  marching  can  support  it,  it  will 
need  supplies  of  missile  weapons  (if  it  uses 
these),  of  vehicles  for  its  baggage,  of  horses 
to  replace  those  lost,  etc.  For  the  continuous 
security  of  such  supplies  it  will  need  depots, 
and  these  are  naturally  best  provided  by  the 
opportunities  which  great  towns  afford. 

Again,  armies  depend  for  their  comparative 
efficiency  very  largely  upon  speed.  Other 
things  being  equal,  the  army  that  can  march 
fastest  will  beat  the  army  that  marches  less 
fast.  It  can  walk  round  its  slower  opponent ; 
intercept  him;  appear  unexpectedly  on  his 
flank;  evade  him  when  necessary,  etc.,  etc. 
Moreover,  this  factor  of  speed  is  complicated 
in  the  march  of  armies  by  the  necessity  for 
arrangement,  or  organisation,  without  which 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      11 

a  large  body  of  men  could  not  be  moved  at 
all,  and  which  increases  very  rapidly  in  com- 
plexity with  the  size  of  the  force  one  has  to 
handle. 

Two  effects  follow  from  this  all-importance 
of  speed,  coupled  with  the-  peculiar  difficulties 
attaching  to  the  complex  arrangements  of 
an  army. 

These  two  effects  are  often  not  grasped  by 
readers  of  history,  because  civilian  history 
neglects  military  conditions  :  yet,  until  we 
grasp  them,  we  cannot  grasp  the  meaning  of 
those  campaigns  by  which  history  is  decided. 

They  are,  first,  the  necessity  for  communica- 
tions ;  and  secondly,  the  determining  factor  of 
obstacles. 

When  we  read  that  "  armies  are  tied  to 
roads  "  the  expression  may  puzzle  us.  We 
are  not  "  tied  "  to  a  road  when  we  travel. 
It  is  a  convenience  but  not  a  necessity.  A 
man  will  often  for  his  pleasure  travel  for  days 
in  wild  country  without  roads  and  make 
excellent  progress.  An  army  could  conceiv- 
ably advance  without  roads,  though  it  would 
have  to  be  a  very  ill-provided  army,  but  it 
would  advance  very  slowly  and  in  great 
confusion  even  so.  With  stores,  vehicles,  etc., 
a  road  is  necessary,  and,  what  is  more,  speed 
is  so  essential  a  matter  to  military  success 


12  WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

that  of  two  opposing  forces  that  which 
commands  the  better  roads  has  an  advantage 
equivalent  to  a  great  advantage  in  actual 
numbers. 

Again,  to  hold  the  junction  of  two  or  more 
main  roads,  or  what  is  called  "  a  nodal  point,^^ 
is  of  great  advantage  to  one  of  two  opponents, 
and  it  is  an  advantage  which  increases  with 
the  number  of  roads  converging  on  that 
point.  It  gives  him  a  choice  of  several  lines  of 
advance  or  retreat,  and  it  permits  him  to 
watch,  meet  or  intercept  his  enemy  upon  any 
one  of  them.  The  Bridge  of  London,  with 
its  converging  roads  from  south-west  and 
south-east,  from  north-west,  north  and  east,  is 
an  example  of  this. 

The  converse  to  this  necessity  for  communi- 
cations is  the  determining  effect  of  obstacles. 
Here,  again,  the  reader  of  history  is  often 
puzzled  by  the  importance  military  writers 
attach  to  an  obstacle  which,  in  civilian  life, 
may  be  quite  insignificant.  A  river  a  few 
yards  wide,  a  range  of  hills  nowhere  precipitous 
may  determine  the  fate  of  a  campaign,  though 
they  would  not  appreciably  delay  a  traveller. 
Why  is  this  ? 

It  is  because  of  two  things  :  first,  because 
of  that  complexity  of  organisation  which  I 
spoke  of  above  as  necessary  to  armies ;  secondly 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      13 

because  of  the  fact  that  armies  are  or  may  be 
opposed  in  their  passage  of  any  obstacle. 

As  to  the  first :  if  I  come,  during  a  walk 
across  country,  to  a  little  river  (such  as  the 
upper  Avon,  at  Rugby),  I  make  nothing  of  it. 
I  am  sure  to  find  a  bridge — and  even  lacking 
that  I  can  fetch  up  and  down  for  a  convenient 
shallow,  or  get  hold  of  a  boat,  or  at  the  worst 
swim  it.  But  20,000  men  cannot  act  in  this 
way.  Even  if  they  have  command  of  a 
bridge,  they  will  have  to  crowd  across  it 
very  few  at  a  time.  If  they  have  no  bridge, 
but  must  find  a  ford,  they  are  still  further 
delayed.  If  the  bridge  is  cut  or  the  ford 
deepened  they  must  build  a  new  passage. 
Even  that  little  stream  may  mean  the  loss  of 
a  day — and  the  loss  of  a  day  may  determine 
the  war. 

As  to  the  second  :  the  fact  that  an  army 
advances  in  the  presence  of  another  army 
that  desires  to  prevent  its  advance  gives 
quite  another  meaning  to  obstacles,  in  the 
strategical  sense  of  that  word,  from  the 
meaning  it  bears  in  ordinary  travel. 

For  instance  :  the  Argonne  hills  in  France 
are  only  300  feet  high  and  they  are  not  steep. 
But  they  are  of  clay  and  densely  wooded. 
Four  roads  cross  them,  and,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Revolutionary  wars,  these  roads  were  held 


14  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

by  the  French  with  the  Prussians  marching 
against  them.  The  Prussians  forced  one  of 
those  road-passages  with  some  loss  and  after 
heavy  effort.  Another  and  most  important 
one  they  failed  to  force,  and  their  failure 
largely  contributed  to  the  French  success  that 
followed.  On  visiting  the  place  one  might 
wonder  why  the  Prussians  did  not  neglect 
the  roads  and  go  through  the  woods  between, 
as  a  party  of  tourists  might  do  to-day  with 
no  appreciable  loss  of  time.  The  answer  is 
that,  had  they  done  anything  so  foolish,  their 
guns,  their  columns  of  marching  men,  their 
wagons  with  supplies  of  food,  etc.,  would  have 
melted  after  the  first  hour  into  a  confused 
mob  of  halted,  or,  at  the  best,  slowly  advanc- 
ing thousands,  which  the  French  from  the 
roads  on  either  side  could  have  marched 
round  and  cut  off  at  will. 

It  is  so  with  every  type  of  obstacle.  What 
is  nothing  to  a  small  body  of  men  advancing 
in  ordinary  travel  may  be  everything  to  a 
large  body  of  men  advancing  against  oppo- 
sition. 

It  remains  to  mention  one  special  form  of 
obstacle  which  holds  the  first  place  in  all  the 
military  history  of  civilised  peoples.  That 
form  of  obstacle  is  Fortification. 

Fortification  may  be  defined  as  an  artificial 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      15 

obstacle  raised  intentionally  by  man,  with  the 
object  of  inflicting  the  maximum  delay  upon 
the  attack  at  a  minimum  expense  of  men  on 
the  part  of  the  defence. 

Fortification  is  not  primarily  intended  to 
keep  an  enemy  permanently  out  of  the 
particular  area  fortified.  It  is  primarily 
intended  to  gain  time,  that  is,  to  impose  delay 
upon  our  enemy,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
increase  the  relative  value  of  our  own  forces 
beyond  their  mere  numerical  value.  One 
man  behind  works  can  prevent  three  men 
from  going  forward  past  those  works. 

Fortification  is  also  intended  to  subserve 
three  other  military  needs. 

(1)  It  safeguards  depots  of  supplies. 

Thus  fortified  posts  along  a  line  of  commu- 
nications at  sufficiently  close  intervals  of  (say) 
a  day's  march  assure  the  permanency  of  sup- 
plies along  that  line  and  the  security  of  their 
stores  from  sudden  attack. 

(2)  It  threatens  the  enemy's  communica- 
tions. 

Thus  we  say  that  Belfort  "  blocks  "  the 
passage  between  the  Jura  and  Vosges  moun- 
tains, although  that  passage  is  twenty-five  miles 
wide.  We  are  certain  that  no  army  would 
be  so  foolish  as  to  pass  on  either  side,  because, 
when  it  had  passed,  the  garrison  of  Belfort 


16 


WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 


would  come  out  and  " cut  its  communications," 
that  is,  prevent  supplies  from  passing  up  to 
the  front  whither  that  army  had  proceeded. 
To  stop  that  stream  would  be,  of  course,  to 
destroy  the  army. 

(3)  It  affords  a  sanctuary — when  it  is  upon 
a  sufficiently  large  scale,  and  well  provisioned — 
for  an  army  pressed  by  superior  numbers  in 
the  field. 


Y/inchestst 


flltbr 


0       ^9    A 


E.g.  A  Blue  army,  K,  60,000  strong  is  march- 
ing from  Portsmouth  against  a  Red  army.  A, 
only  40,000  strong  at  Alton,  not  thirty  miles 
away — two  days'  march.  Another  Red  army, 
B,  also  40,000  strong,  is  coming  up  from 
Dorsetshire — four  days'  march  away — ^to  join 
army  A.  When  A  and  B  join,  the  Reds  will 
have  80,000  against  the  Blue's  60,000.  But 
if  A  gets  caught  before  B  comes  up,  A  will  be 
outnumbered  and  crushed.  Then  the  Blues 
can  turn  on  B  and  deal  with  him  in  his  turn. 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY   17 

Without  fortification  this  is  bound  to  happen, 
for  the  Blue  army  can  strike  between  A  and 
B.  But  suppose  Winchester  is  fortified,  A 
throws  himself  into  Winchester  and  the  Blues 
are  checked.  They  cannot,  with  only  60,000 
men,  besiege  Winchester  (with  40,000  inside) 
and  at  the  same  time  stand  the  attack  of 
40,000  more  coming  up  behind  them. 
'f  These  four  characters,  then,  attach  to  forti- 
fication. First  and  chief,  the  imposing  of 
delay  upon  the  enemy ;  next,  the  safeguarding 
of  depots  of  supplies ;  then  the  threatening  of 
an  enemy's  advance  (so  that,  if  it  be  properly 
garrisoned,  he  cannot  neglect  a  fortified 
place) ;  lastly,  the  affording  of  a  refuge  to  an 
army  expecting  succour  but  not  yet  strong 
enough  to  meet  the  enemy  in  the  field. 

Warfare  in  England  is  not  concerned  with 
modern  fortification,  for  there  has  been  no 
fighting  within  the  country  since  modern 
fortification  was  developed.  But  two  forms 
of  fortification  we  shall  find  determining  the 
I  whole  story  of  English  warfare  in  the  Middle 
'Ages.  First,  the  walled  town;  secondly,  the 
!  highly  fortified  special  point  or  castle.  Each 
of  these  types  acts  continually  as  a  delay  in 
^iime,  a  guarded  depot  of  supplies,  a  block  to 
'advance    and    a   refuge,    and    each   is    found 


18  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

determining   the   results  of   campaigns  from 
the  eleventh  to  the  sixteenth  centuries. 

These  preliminaries  being  laid  down,  we 
can  approach  the  main  lines  of  English 
topography  as  illustrating  English  warfare. 
I  will  begin  with  the  natural  features,  and 
conclude  with  the  chief  fortified  points. 

A  plan  of  these  two  combined  is  the 
framework  within  which  the  whole  story  of 
warfare  in  England  is  acted. 

Five  great  types  of  obstacle  are  found  on 
the  surface  of  the  earth  :  hills,  forest,  marsh, 
river,  and  desert.  The  last  is  absent  from 
England ;  the  remaining  four  we  will  examine 
in  their  order. 

As  to  hills — 

Look  at  some  good  map  of  the  whole 
island  of  Britain,  in  which  mountain  is  dis- 
tinguished from  plain,  and  pasture  and  arable 
land  from  heath  and  waste. 

The  first  thing  that  you  discover  is  that 
the  island  is  not  divided  into  isolated  stretches 
of  arable  and  pasture  land,  each  suitable  for 
habitation,  and  each  divided  one  from  its 
neighbour  by  some  belt  of  high  or  waste 
territory.  The  high  and  waste  territories  lie 
in  great  masses  to  the  north  and  west,  while 
the  south  and  east  form  in  the  main,  one 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      19 

habitable,  arable,  fertile  district,  cut  by  no 
such  obstacles. 

To  this  general  scheme  there  are  but  two 
exceptions.  One  is  the  interference  of  an 
irregular  mass  of  waste  highland  which  cuts 
off  the  Scottish  Lowlands  from  the  North 
English  plains,  and,  projecting  in  a  tongue, 
divides  these  last  into  the  Lancashire  and  the 
Yorkshire  flats;  the  other  is  the  isolated 
valley  of  the  Eden. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  formation  we 
shall  find  that  the  strategical  topography  of 
England  was  never  concerned  with  that  form 
of  obstacle  which  most  generally  decides  the 
strategy  of  warring  or  united  kingdoms;  to 
wit,  the  interference  of  high,  waste,  and  barren 
land  between  two  habitable  bases,  from  one 
of  which  armies  set  forth,  and  to  the  other 
of  which,  as  an  objective,  their  advances 
are  directed.  So  it  was  with  Italy  to  the 
west  and  east  of  the  Apennines;  with  the 
Lombard  plain  and  the  Germanies;  with 
Provence  and  the  crown  of  Paris.  It  has 
not  been  so  with  England.  For  the  most 
part  the  armies  that  have  marched  to  and 
fro  over  the  territory  of  Britain  have  not  had 
to  concern  themselves  with  the  obstacle  of 
difficult  hill  country,  save  in  the  case  of 
the  Pennines  separating  the  Lancashire  and 


20  WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

Yorkshire  plains,  and  even  there  no  great 
action  has  depended  upon  any  attempt  to 
block  an  advance  across  them. 

So  much  for  hills;  there  remain  forest, 
marsh,  and  river. 

All  these  three  are  present  abundantly  upon 
the  map  of  Britain.  Forests  have  somewhat 
diminished  in  the  course  of  centuries  (though 
to  nothing  like  the  extent  which  is  sometimes 
imagined);  marsh  has  been  temporarily 
drained  and  artificially  masked  by  a  system 
of  hard  roads  and  embankments,  but  it  still 
would  dominate  the  conditions  of  any — even 
a  modern — campaign,  east  of  the  Great  North 
Road,  and  would  reappear  everywhere  else 
in  its  original  extent  but  a  very  few  years 
after  a  decline  in  our  complex  methods  of 
dealing  with  it. 

As  to  our  rivers,  they  remain,  for  the  most 
part,  what  they  were ;  and  by  studying  their 
conditions  to-day  we  can  determine  their 
effect  upon  strategy  in  the  past. 

Now,  of  these  three  kinds  of  obstacle,  forest 
has  had  least  to  do  with  our  military  history, 
marsh  has  proved  the  most  formidable  in 
character  on  particular  occasions,  rivers 
the  most  determinant  of  results  in  actual 
warfare. 

A  very  large   area  of   marsh   intervening 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      21 

between  two  inhabited  and  cultivable  areas 
would  form  an  obstacle  more  serious  than  any 
other  to  an  army,  and  one  especially  grave  if 
it  were  extended  in  length,  forming  a  natural 
barrier  against  communication  between  the 
two  districts  upon  either  side. 

It  so  happens  that  a  formation  of  this  kind 
is  very  rare.  And  in  the  particular  case  of 
Britain  there  is  but  one  district,  and  that  a 
local  and  particular  example,  in  which  marsh 
has  thus  acted  as  a  definite  barrier  to  advance 
from  a  base  to  an  objective.  That  case  is  the 
case  of  the  marshes  which  cut  off  the  Lanca- 
shire from  the  Cheshire  plains. 

Between  Lancashire  and  the  south,  stretch- 
ing from  the  Pennines  to  the  sea,  and  leaving 
but  a  narrow  gate  by  Stockport,  a  natural  belt 
of  marsh  along  the  valley  of  the  Mersey  engaged 
in  the  past  the  military  engineers  of  Rome, 
shaped  the  strategical  plans  of  Prince  Rupert 
in  the  civil  wars,  and  has  occupied  in  over- 
coming it  the  civil  engineers  of  our  own 
day. 

This  belt  forms  a  true  barrier,  and  one  of 
the  most  clearly  defined  units  in  the  strategical 
topography  of  England.  It  bars  the  whole 
advance  to  the  north-west.  It  has  made  of 
Manchester  (which  commands  the  gap)  a 
strategical  point  of  the  first  importance  for 


22  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

1500  years,  from  the  Romans  to  the  abortive 
attack  of  1644. 

Elsewhere  in  England,  marsh  lies  either  in 
great  areas  apart  from  the  main  lines  of 
military  advance,  or  in  isolated  patches  (as 
on  the  lower  Parrett,  in  hollows  of  the  Mid- 
lands such  as  Otmoor,  etc.),  which  do  not 
interrupt  communication  between  one  district 
and  another.  The  main  advance  from  the 
south  to  the  north  skirts  and  is  not  impeded 
by  the  fen  land.  The  groups  of  marsh  upon 
the  south  coast  have  isolated  Sussex  to  the 
east  and  to  the  west,  but  have  not  affected 
military  history  because  they  could  easily 
be  passed  to  the  north ;  while  the  only  other 
considerable  group,  that  cutting  off  Somerset 
from  Devon,  is  turned  with  equal  facility  by 
the  south. 

Marsh  land  has  often  afforded  a  refuge  for 
a  broken  force,  as  for  the  last  of  the  resistance 
to  the  Norman  Conquest;  it  has  acted  this 
part  of  a  final  stronghold  upon  three  or  four 
famous  occasions  in  English  history,  but,  save 
in  the  example  of  the  Mersey  valley  cutting 
off  Lancashire  from  the  south,  it  has  deter- 
mined no  part  of  the  strategical  history  of 
Britain. 

Of  forest,  there  is  even  less  to  say ;  not  even 
in  early  times  was  it  either  so  dense  or  of  such 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY   23 

an  extent  as  seriously  to  affect  the  march  of 
armies.  Forest  has  served  the  purpose  of  a 
refuge,  and  sometimes  of  a  screen,  but  you  do 
not  find  in  the  history  of  Britain,  as  you  find 
in  the  history  of  Gaul,  great  stretches  of  dense 
woodland,  the  gaps  or  passes  through  which 
are  gates  to  which  a  force  is  necessarily  con- 
ducted and  the  defence  of  which  may  deter- 
mine a  campaign.  The  scale  upon  which 
Britain  is  built,  the  dispersion  of  its  wood- 
lands, their  sporadic  character  and  com- 
paratively small  extent  in  all  periods,  account 
for  this  negative  feature  in  the  history  of 
British  strategy.  The  armies  of  the  French 
Revolution  were  all  but  lost  by  the  forcing  of 
the  Argonne.  Jemappes  and  Malplaquet  each 
turn  upon  two  neighbouring  breaches  in  the 
woodlands  of  the  Belgian  frontier;  the 
shepherding  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  on  to 
Fontenoy  was  made  possible  by  the  presence 
of  great  and  difficult  tracts  of  trees;  while 
to-day  the  Ardennes  largely  determine  the 
calculations  of  the  French  and  German  staffs. 
Nothing  of  this  kind  can  be  predicated  of  war- 
fare in  England,  and  though,  as  we  shall  see 
later,  wood  necessarily  enters  largely  into  the 
details  of  a  campaign  and  is,  of  course,  as 
important  tactically  here  as  in  any  other 
country,  it  does  not  form,  as  it  does  so  often 


24  WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

abroad,  a  great  topographical  feature,  nor 
canalise  the  history  of  war.^ 

It  is  upon  the  river  system  of  Britain  (in 
which  I  include,  of  course,  the  great  estuaries) 
that  the  student  of  warfare  in  this  island  must 
particularly  concentrate.  It  is  the  rivers 
and  the  profound  funnels  of  sea-ways  at  their 
mouths  which  principally  affect  the  march 
of  armies  in  English  history,  and  one  might 
almost  say  that  a  study  of  strategy  in  Britain 
was  a  study  in  the  hydrographical  scheme  of 
the  island. 

Before  going  further,  it  is  as  well  to  remark 

at  once  the  following  singular  and   capital 

^  The  reader  must  here  be  warned  against  an  error 
childishly  simple  and  yet  perpetually  repeated  in  the  text- 
books of  English  history.  The  word  "  forest "  used  in 
translating  the  Low  Latin  foresta  does  not  mean  forest  in 
the  sense  of  woodland.  It  means  no  more  than  waste 
lands  under  the  special  administration  of  the  Crown. 
Thus  the  New  Forest,  the  Forest  of  Elmet,  and  a  dozen 
others  that  might  be  named,  were  never  a  real  obstacle  to 
any  army,  for  no  dense  woodland  occupied  them,  and  their 
barren,  ill-populated  area  was  not  too  wide  to  be  crossed 
in  one  day's  march.  Most  of  our  historians  have  neg- 
lected this  point  and  have  confused  themselves  and  their 
readers  by  so  neglecting  it.  Thus  Freeman  talks  witli 
characteristic  stupidity  of  the  ^'pathless  forest  of  the 
Andred's  Weald,"  although  but  a  few  pages  before  he  has 
been  following  the  march  of  a  great  army  right  through 
it  at  the  pace  of  thirty-three  miles  a  day.  ITie  Andrea's 
Weald  (in  Sussex)  was  a  forest  in  the  sense  that  it  was 
waste  land,  being  of  stiff  clay  and  badly  watered,  but  it 
was  never  densely  wooded  and  must  always  have  been 
what  we  see  it  to-day,  a  collection  of  spinneys  and  heaths. 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      25 

complication  presented  by  this  type  of  obstacle. 
A  river  is  a  barrier  to  advance ;  it  is  a  check, 
the  possession  of  passages  over  which  confers 
decisive  advantage  upon  the  possessor.  A 
river  thus  acts  as  a  determinant  of  strategy 
from  within  a  very  few  miles  of  its  source. 
The  least  stream,  especially  if  it  have  low-lying 
and  swampy  banks,  is  a  formidable  hold-up 
to  an  advancing  force,  introducing  to  that  one 
of  two  opponents  who  does  not  possess  the 
artificial  means  of  crossing  it  a  fundamental 
disadvantage  to  be  measured  in  hours  of  delay 
or  in  confusion  of  supply,  or  in  unserviceable 
formation,  any  one  of  which,  or  all  three 
together  may  involve  him  in  defeat. 

But  a  river  is  also,  during  a  great  part  of 
its  course,  an  avenue  of  advance  and  a  means 
of  communication  as  well  as  an  obstacle.  This 
is  especially  true  of  periods  of  low  civilisation 
when  roads  are  not  thoroughly  developed. 
What  proportion  of  the  whole  length  of  the 
river  will  thus  be  available  as  a  line  of  com- 
munications will  depend  upon  the  nature  of 
the  stream,  upon  the  kind  of  boats  available, 
upon  the  character  of  supply,  of  missiles,  etc. 
But  a  certain  large  proportion  of  any  con- 
siderable river  will  always  be  as  much  an 
avenue  of  advance  along  its  course  as  a  barrier 
to  an  advance  transverse  to  that  course ;  and 


26  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

this  complication  must  be  borne  in  mind  when 
we  consider  the  effect  of  a  scheme  of  its  water- 
ways upon  the  mihtary  history  of  any  country. 

Taking,  then,  the  fundamental  factor  of 
strategy  in  this  country  to  be  the  scheme  of 
its  rivers,  let  us  see  what  that  scheme  is. 
The  island  of  Britain  stands  in  a  tidal  sea, 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  which  is  greatly  intensified 
by  the  formation  of  the  coasts. 

The  great  estuaries  are  so  many  funnels 
into  which  the  flood  pours  with  an  especial 
violence,  and,  as  a  consequence,  every  part 
of  the  coast  of  Britain  is  provided  with  great 
natural  highways  into  the  interior,  which 
highways  "  move  along  of  themselves,"  aiding 
passage  to  and  fro  for  a  considerable  distance 
from  the  sea  coast. 

No  other  European  island  is  thus  penetrated 
by  the  influence  of  the  sea.  Iceland  has  no 
such  rivers,  nor  Sicily,  nor  Crete. 

No  continental  region  is  under  similar 
conditions  (though  Northern  France  and 
Belgium  afford  the  closest  parallel  to  them). 
And  those  conditions  have  moulded  something 
like  one-half  of  the  story  of  warfare  in  this 
country.  For  the  penetration  of  the  island 
by  its  tidal  water-ways  is  the  determining 
element  in  the  pirate  invasions  it  has  suffered 
from  the  east 


1 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      27 

Again,  apart  from  the  tide,  the  country  is 
penetrated  to  its  very  heart  by  a  widespread 
river  system  which,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Welsh  mountains  and  that  Pennine  group  to 
which  I  have  already  alluded,  covers  the  whole 
country  with  a  network  of  easy  water  com- 
munication. The  considerable  rainfall,  its 
continuous  character,  the  absence  of  any 
considerable  heights  to  the  south  and  east 
of  the  Pennines  and  of  the  Welsh  hills,  have 
made  of  Britain  a  land  ever3rwhere  served  and, 
under  early  conditions,  everywhere  vulnerable 
through  water  carriage. 

Britain  has  three  main  categories  of  entry 
by  water  and  of  obstacles  presented  by  water 
to  the  advance  of  an  army. 

These  three  main  categories  are — 

(1)  The  great  estuaries. 

(2)  The  larger  rivers  which  lead  into  the 
heart  of  the  country. 

(3)  The  numerous  small  coastal  streams. 
The  first  category  stands  by  itself,  although 

some  of  the  great  estuaries  are  the  mouths 
of  the  larger  rivers,  and  all  of  them  lead  up 
to  river  communication  inland.  It  stands 
by  itself  because  the  estuary  is  a  permanent 
obstacle  which  armies  hardly  or  never  negoti- 
ate directly,  but  which  they  are  almost  always 
compelled  to  turn.     The  smaller  rivers,  which 


28  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

are  the  characteristic  form  of  obstacle  all 
round  our  coasts  and  also  the  characteristic 
form  of  entry,  are  usually  fordable  at  no  great 
distance  from  their  mouths,  though  there 
are  exceptions  to  this  general  rule  with  which 
I  shall  deal  later. 

It  is  the  second  category,  that  of  the  larger 
rivers,  which  we  must  particularly  note  in 
establishing  the  strategic  conditions  of  the 
island. 

The  reader  will  see  at  a  glance  that  these 
longer  river  systems  penetrating  the  heart  of 
the  island  are  but  three  in  number.  There 
is  the  system  of  the  Thames,  the  system  of  the 
Humber  or  Trent,  and  the  system  of  the 
Severn. 

Now  of  these  three  the  Severn  can  be  left 
out.  From  the  character  of  its  stream,  of  its 
mountainous  origin,  of  the  geological  forma- 
tions through  which  it  flows,  the  Severn  has 
not  proved  a  formidable  barrier  in  the  history 
of  British  warfare.  It  has  not  been  defended 
as  a  frontier,  and  though  its  group  of  fortresses, 
Worcester,  Gloucester,  Shrewsbury,  Bristol, 
have  affected  all  our  civil  wars,  the  manoeuvr- 
ing of  opposing  armies  has  never  strictly 
depended  upon  its  line  save  once — in  the 
campaign  of  Evesham,  1265. 

The   reason   of   this   is   threefold.     In  the 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      29 

first  place,  the  river  is  too  rapid  and  too  un- 
certain to  be  used  largely  for  commerce  in  all 
the  upper  part  of  its  course.  In  the  second 
place,  it  is  easily  and  naturally  passable  in 
very  numerous  places,  apart  from  its  bridges. 
In  the  third  place,  the  principal  efforts  of 
armies  would  be  directed  to  no  objective  in 
approaching  which  the  Severn  would  form  a 
boundary.  The  struggle  between  the  tribal 
kinglets  of  the  Welsh  hills  and  the  successive 
governments  of  England  was  less  a  struggle 
between  two  races  or  two  civilisations  than  a 
struggle  between  the  mountain  and  the  plain. 
Did  the  Severn  correspond  to  the  boundary  of 
the  Welsh  highlands  it  might,  in  spite  of  the 
easy  passages  across  it,  have  formed  something 
of  a  strategical  obstacle  in  our  history.  But 
it  is  not  such  a  boundary.  Good,  arable  land, 
and  highly  populated  districts  lay  between  it 
and  the  mountains.  Wherever  such  land  is 
jto  be  found  (as  along  the  south  coast  of  the 
'Principality)  the  culture  and  social  system 
of  Eastern  Britain,  under  its  various  names  of 
Roman,  Norman,  English,  or  what-not,  are 
ialso  to  be  discovered.  And  the  contest 
(which  has  never  been  on  large  and  regular 
lines,  but  always  of  a  scattered  sort)  between 
the  hills  and  the  plains  below  them,  has  not 
had  to  concern  itself  with  the  line  of  the  great 


30  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

western  river.  In  so  far  as  there  is  any  strate- 
gical plan  to  be  discovered  in  the  confused 
border  fighting  of  this  region  it  concerns  not 
the  Severn  Valley,  but  the  "  Marches "  of 
Wales.  Its  pivots  and  bases  are  nowhere  to 
be  discovered  upon  the  stream  of  the  Severn, 
but  rather  upon  the  line  of  strongholds,  New- 
port, Hereford,  Leominster,  Ludlow,  Shrews- 
bury, Chester;  and  on  that  line  Shrewsbury 
alone  is  on  the  Severn,  and  is  only  accidentally 
connected  with  that  stream,  which  nowhere 
forms  a  strategical  element  in  the  military 
problems  of  the  Welsh  border. 

The  remaining  two  systems  which  we  have 
particularly  to  consider  and  which,  between 
them,  determine  the  strategical  history  of 
Britain,  are  those  of  the  Humber  and  of  the 
Thames. 

Of  all  the  rivers  falling  into  the  Humber, 
two  only  have  permanently  played  the  part 
of  a  military  obstacle  in  the  strategical  history 
of  the  country,  and  that  after  a  fashion  that 
would  not  appear  at  first  sight.  The  first  of 
these  is  the  Aire,  the  second  the  Trent. 

The  Ouse,  the  Swale,  the  Tees,  the  Wharfe 
all  presented  obstacles,  of  course,  to  any 
march  upon  the  north ;  but  the  Aire  was  the 
main  barrier — and  that  for  these  two  reasons  : 
first,  that  York,  the  capital  of  the  north,  was 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY   31 

always  the  objective  of  a  march  northward, 
and  that,  of  three  rivers  standing  before  York, 
the  Wharfe,  the  Aire,  the  Don,  the  passage 
of  the  Aire  was  decisive  because  it  was,  so  to 
speak,  "  at  arm's  length  "  from  York.  The 
passage  of  the  Don  at  Doncaster  was  too  far 
away  to  be  usefully  defended,  that  of  the 
Wharfe  at  Tadcaster  too  close  at  hand  :  to 
fight  there  was  to  fight  desperately  near  the 
city.  But  the  second  reason  was  far  more 
weighty.  The  Aire  bridges  the  narrowest 
passage  between  the  Pennines  and  the  estuary 
of  Humber  :  what  is  still  more  important, 
it  bridges  the  narrowest  gap  between  the 
Pennines  and  the  marshes  that  line  the 
estuary  of  the  Humber;  no  army  could  pass 
cast  of  Rawcliffe  :  it  could  only  pass  with 
difficulty  west  of  Wakefield  in  the  hills.  The 
Aire,  therefore,  serves,  far  less  perfectly,  the 
same  purpose  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Pen- 
nines  that  the  Mersey  marshes  do  on  the 
western  side.  It  cuts  the  road  to  the  north 
at  a  narrow  gate,  not  much  over  a  day's 
march  in  width. ^ 

The  Roman  road  crossed  at  Castleford, 
towards  the  western  or  hill  border  of  the  gap  : 
the  alternative  later  road  at  Ferry  Bridge 

^  Rawcliflfe  to    Wakefield    is    somewhat    over  twenty 

miles. 


32  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

some  four  miles  down  stream.  Both  crossings 
were  commanded  during  the  dark  and  middle 
ages  by  the  fortified  post  of  Pontefract,  which 
thus  played  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Pennines 
something  like  the  strategical  part  played  on 
the  western  side  by  Manchester. 

As  to  the  Trent.  The  Trent  leads  right 
through  into  the  heart  of  the  Midlands,  cutting 
England  from  east  to  west,  while  it  has 
been  more  of  an  avenue  of  approach  for 
invaders  from  the  North  Sea  than  an  obstacle 
to  advance  from  south  to  north. 

The  reason  of  this  lies  in  the  course  of  the 
river.  It  curls  round  the  southern  base  of 
the  Pennines — across  which  from  the  south  to 
the  north  no  one  would  ever  have  to  march. 
When  it  has  left  the  base  of  those  hills  it 
affords  a  barrier  to  a  northward  march  across 
the  plains  over  just  a  limited  distance,  for 
it  soon  begins  to  turn  northward. 

The  principal  crossing-place  on  a  march 
north,  from  London  to  York,  is  at  Nottingham, 
and  the  possession  of  the  castle  of  Nottingham 
we  shall  therefore  find  to  be  of  the  first 
importance  to  medieval  armies. 
•  Lower  down,  where  the  Fosse  Way  touched 
it,  and  where  the  Great  North  Road  passed 
the  river,  Newark  defended  it — and  Newark, 
once   at    least    in   English   military   history 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY   33 

(in  1643-4),  was  a  pivot-point  in  the  strategy 
of  a  campaign.  Below  Newark  the  Trent 
loses  strategical  importance.  It  no  longer 
blocks  the  way  north  and  south,  but  only  the 
passage  between  Lincolnshire  and  Yorkshire — 
never  of  paramount  importance  to  an  army. 
The  crossing  of  the  Roman  road  at  Littleboro' 
has  never  merited  so  much  as  an  earthwork. 

Finally  we  have  the  line  of  the  Thames. 
The  strategical  value  of  the  Thames  lies  in 
these  two  points  :  that  the  Thames  forms  an 
obstacle  from  above  Cricklade  to  the  Nore, 
cutting  South  England  right  in  two  ;  that 
South  England  is  naturally  by  far  the  richest 
part  of  the  island,  the  seat  of  its  government 
and  culture,  the  neighbour  of  Europe. 

How  thoroughly  the  Thames  cuts  South 
England  a  man  may  try  for  himself  in  this 
fashion  :  Let  him  go  from  Bristol  to  Bunsley 
by  train ;  climb  Bunsley  Hill  and  thence  look 
down  upon  the  estuary  of  the  Severn ;  then  let 
him  turn  his  face  eastward  and  walk  through 
Tetbury  to  Cricklade — it  is  easily  done  in  a 
day — a  matter  of  twenty  odd  miles  :  then  let 
him  try  to  cross  the  Thames  at  Cricklade 
through  the  water. 

The  Thames  cuts  South  England  with  a 
clear  military  obstacle  from  side  to  side,  from 
its  eastern  side  to  within  a  day's  walk  of  its 


34  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

western  :  and  South  England  is  the  heart  of 
England,  the  origin  of  English  measures  and 
letters  and  all. 

To  these  two  points  a  third  might  be  added — 
which  is  that  the  Thames  line  includes  London, 
of  which  I  shall  speak  in  a  moment.  The 
importance  of  London  in  the  strategical 
topography  of  England  cannot  be  exaggerated ; 
but  in  connection  with  the  line  of  the  Thames 
London  may  properly  be  regarded  as  no  more 
than  the  outcome  of  that  preponderance  of 
the  south  in  our  civilisation  which  is  its 
principal  note. 

The  line  of  the  Thames  has  been  throughout 
English  history  the  gi'cat  obstacle  present 
for  an  army  to  negotiate  whether  from  the 
north,  as  when  the  Danes  forced  it  at  Cricklade, 
or  from  the  south,  as  when  Julius  Caesar  forced 
it  (whether  at  Brentford  or  Cowey  Stakes), 
or  William  the  Conqueror  at  Wallingford. 

Its  main  part  was  defended  above  London 
by  four  strongly  fortified  posts,  Oxford, 
Wallingford,  Reading,  Windsor :  to  these, 
Roman  works  at  Cricklade  and  Dorchester 
should  be  added — but  the  four  I  have  men- 
tioned controlled  the  line  throughout  all  the 
warfare  of  which  we  have  record  for  fifteen 
centuries.  Of  these  Reading,  in  the  bend 
southward,    counted   least,    for   it    could   be 


I 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      35 

neglected  by  whoever  held  Wallingford. 
Wallingford  was  the  main  crossing  from  the 
west,  and  Windsor — a  day's  march  from 
London  and  exceedingly  strong — was,  after 
the  Conquest,  the  chief  of  the  line  as  terminal, 
and  as  supporting  the  largest  garrison,  and 
as  threatening  the  immediate  approach  to 
London.  London,  and  the  way  it  controls 
its  own  crossing,  I  will  presently  deal  with. 
Below  London  armies  could  not  without  vast 
preparation  and  a  guarantee  against  opposi- 
tion cross  the  tidal  river. 

I  have  shown  how,  in  English  strategics 
the  southward  extension  of  the  Pennines  is 
the  principal  hill-obstacle ;  but,  on  the 
advance  northward,  the  marshes  of  the  Mersey, 
of  which  the  key  is  Manchester,  the  line  of 
the  Aire,  of  which  the  key  is  Pontefract,  are 
the  two  barriers :  how  the  Trent  is  held  at 
Newark  and  much  more  at  Nottingham  :  how 
the  Severn  is  no  true  line  :  how  the  Thames 
is  the  principal  line  across  South  England. 

To  this  should  be  added  the  position  of 
Newcastle  and  Corbridge  as  holding  the 
passage  of  the  Tyne,  of  Berwick  controlling 
that  of  the  Tweed.  I  might  have  added  the 
crossings  of  the  marshy  river  valleys,  by 
defended  causeways  (the  Stamfords,  Stan- 
fords,  StratfordSy  Stretfords,  Staff ords,  Strettons, 


86  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

StattonSf  etc.,  all  over  England),  and  the  role 
of  the  ports.  But  I  have  no  space  for  more 
than  the  outlines  of  my  subject. 

I  must  conclude  by  dealing  with  three  last 
points — one  of  capital  effect,  the  position  and 
value  of  London,  the  other  two  the  main 
towns  and  the  entry  from  Europe. 

London. 

No  one  can  read  the  story  of  warfare  in 
this  country  without  being  struck  by  one 
outstanding  mark  of  it  which  separates  it 
at  once  from  the  corresponding  story  of  war- 
fare in  other  European  lands.  That  mark  is 
this  :  the  chief  town  of  the  island  is  after  an 
early  date,  that  is  from  the  eleventh  century 
onwards,  never  besieged  nor  even  entered 
against  its  will  by  a  hostile  army. 

From  noting  an  anomaly  of  such  importance 
the  student  is  led  to  consider  the  causes  of 
it,  and  so  discovers  that  London  has,  for 
certain  reasons  which  I  will  now  describe, 
not  only  occupied  a  special  position  in  all 
the  military  history  of  England,  but  very 
largely  determined  the  fate  of  every  struggle 
fought  out  upon  the  soil  of  this  island. 

In  the  first  place,  London  always  had  and 
continues  to  have  a  numerical  position  of  an 
extraordinary  kind.     It  accounts  to-day  for 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      37 

something  like  a  sixth  of  the  population. 
It  has  often  in  the  past  accounted  for  a  similar 
proportion  of  the  population  of  its  day.  It 
has  never  had  less  than  one-tenth  of  England 
within  its  boundaries,  so  far  as  we  can  estimate 
the  numbers  of  the  past.  This  feature  alone 
would  give  it  in  the  story  of  English  campaign- 
ing a  position  quite  different  from  that 
occupied  by  Paris,  let  us  say,  in  the  north 
of  France,  or  Lyons  in  the  south. 

London,  one  town,  the  political  feeling  in 
which  would  generally  run  clearly  in  one 
current,  favouring  or  resisting  an  invasion, 
or  taking  this  side  or  that  in  a  civil  struggle, 
was  also  for  centuries  the  best  recruiting 
ground  in  the  kingdom.  Whoever  had 
London  could  always  be  certain  of  a  raw 
army  and  a  large  one  :  in  this  respect  London 
appears  as  a  deciding  factor  in  the  struggle  of 
the  aristocracy  against  John,  in  the  Barons' 
Wars,  even  in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  and  with 
a  special  weight  in  the  Civil  Wars  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

But  this  is  only  one  aspect  of  the  numerical 
effect  of  London. 

That  numerical  aspect  it  was  which  prevented 
a  siege.  There  was  never  in  England  a  hostile 
force  sufficiently  great  to  contain  so  con- 
siderable a  perimeter  as  was  measured  by  the 


38  WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

walls  of  London.  The  river  was  too  broad 
to  be  blocked  for  long,  and  it  could  always 
furnish  supplies.  No  force  was  ever  raised, 
perhaps  none  could  ever  be  raised,  large 
enough,  I  do  not  say  to  contain  London  in 
the  military  sense,  even  to  oppose  success- 
fully such  a  great  body  as  London  could 
raise  within  itself  for  offensive  purposes  if 
it  were  menaced.  The  king  of  England  never 
held  London  as  the  king  of  France  held  Paris. 
The  Tower  was  never  to  London  what  the 
Louvre  was  to  Paris.  Throughout  the  six 
centuries  which  intervened  between  the  last 
Danish  fighting  and  the  civil  wars,  London 
acts  as  the  necessary  ally  even  of  regular 
governments;  it  is  often  their  successful 
opponent;  it  is  never  entirely  their  subject, 
still  less  the  victim  of  their  conquest. 

Nor  is  it  upon  numbers  alone  that  this 
peculiar  privilege  of  London  reposes. 

The  economic  position  of  London  is  also 
something  quite  anomalous  and  peculiar  to 
the  English  State. 

London  is  said  to-day  to  exercise  between 
a  third  and  a  fourth  of  the  economic 
power  of  demand  exerciseable  in  modern 
England. 

In  the  past  this  control  was,  of  course, 
infinitely  simpler  and  less  extended,  while  the 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY   39 

actual  proportion  of  economic  demand  which 
London  could  exercise  compared  with  the 
rest  of  the  country  was  smaller  than  it  is 
now ;  but  it  was  always  very  large,  and  trans- 
lated into  military  terms  it  meant  this  :  that 
London  was  always  a  base  of  supply.  It  could 
furnish  money  and  it  could  furnish  provisions. 
The  Barons  marching  from  Bedford  in  the 
campaign  of  Magna  Charta  recruited  after 
that  long  march  in  London ;  but  for  the  forage 
and  remounts  there  obtainable  their  effort 
would  have  failed.  At  the  other  end  of  the 
story,  in  the  Civil  Wars,  London  provisions 
and  pays  the  armies  of  the  Parliament. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  peculiar  value  of 
London  in  English  military  history  on  account 
of  its  size,  numbers,  and  wealth. 

But  there  is  more  than  this.  London  is 
also — as  I  have  said — ^the  nodal  point  of 
all  the  communications  which  bind  eastern 
England.  It  was  the  point  where  the  roads 
from  the  Yorkshire  Plain  and  from  the  South 
Midlands  and  from  East  Anglia  cross  the 
Thames  and  catch  on  to  the  roads  which  give 
access  to  the  Channel  ports — especially  those 
ports  which  command  the  narrower  section 
of  the  Channel  and  stand  over  against  the 
great  continental  approaches  to  this  country, 
and    which,    therefore,    will    always    be    the 


40  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 


I 


principal  entry  from  the  continent  for  supplies, 
alliance,  intelligence,  or  any  other  form  of 
aid. 

London  thus  blocks,  and  can  permit  or  can 
restrain,  communication  by  land  between  the 
eastern  half  of  the  island — ^the  main  part  of 
it  at  least — and  the  southern  counties  and 
the  Continent. 

Finally,  London  by  its  position  effectively 
divides  England,  when  there  is  warfare  in 
England,  into  a  western  and  an  eastern  half 
as  effectively  as  though  a  wall  divided  them. 
This  topographical  function  by  which  London 
divides  England  strategically  into  an  eastern 
and  a  western  portion  is  singularly  helped  by 
the  course  of  the  Thames.  The  Thames  takes 
its  great  bend  northward  just  beyond  Windsor, 
a  day's  march  along  the  Roman  road  from 
London  to  the  bridge  at  Staines ;  London  com- 
mands everything  eastward  of  that  northern 
bend.  In  other  words,  a  force  from  London 
can  get  across  the  Thames  at  Staines  and  be 
blocking  an  advance  across  the  Thames  from 
the  south  while  an  attempt  to  turn  is  checked 
by  the  northerly  bend  of  the  river.  It  is  not 
until  you  get  to  the  defensible  point  of  Reading 
between  its  two  water  obstacles  of  the  Kennet 
and  the  Thames  that  you  find  the  first  con- 
venient passage  over  the  river  which  escapes 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      41 

from  the  military  influence  of  London.  All 
marching  from  north  to  south  or  south  to  north 
accomplished  in  the  face  of  a  hostile  London 
has  therefore  had  to  make  the  great  bend 
westward,  at  least  as  far  as  Reading,  which 
marks  off  the  military  story  of  eastern  from 
western  England. 

This  rule  worked,  of  course,  subconsciously 
rather  than  consciously  in  the  simple  strategy 
of  feudal  warfare,  and  even  in  the  subsequent 
and  more  developed  strategy  of  the  Civil 
Wars,  but  though  it  has  not  appeared  in  the 
fixed  plan  of  any  particular  general,  it  has 
worked  none  the  less;  and  in  the  campaigns 
of  the  Barons  in  the  thirteenth  century,  as 
in  those  of  the  Parliament  in  the  sixteenth, 
you  find  the  dividing  line  which  London 
establishes  between  east  and  west  passing 
not  through  London  itself,  but  well  to  the 
west  of  it.  Bedford,  for  instance,  Windsor 
and  the  Bridge  of  Staines,  all  Surrey  and  all 
Sussex,  are  on  the  London  side  of  this  line, 
and  troops  condemned  by  the  military 
obstacle  of  London  to  rely  upon  the  west 
are  based  beyond  the  line,  Warwick, 
Oxford,  Wallingford,  Reading,  Basingstoke 
and  Newbury  :  you  do  not  find  them  fighting 
great  general  actions  nearer  to  the  capital 
than  that. 


42  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

The  Towns, 

Of  the  strategical  effect  of  the  towns  it  is 
enough  to  point  out  how  many  owe  their 
value  to  their  being  fortified  depots  rather 
than  points  of  natural  strategical  importance. 

Of  the  latter  sort  are  most  of  the  old  ports, 
such  as  Bristol  or  Portsmouth,  Chester  or 
Southampton  or  Hull.  So  are  certain  points 
clearly  strategic,  such  as  Manchester  and 
Pontefract,  whose  power  to  hold  a  passage  has 
been  seen  above,  to  which  might  be  added 
Nottingham  guarding  the  Trent,  Stafford 
(where  the  road  going  N.W.  from  the  Watling 
Street  passed  the  marshes  of  the  Sosly), Stamford 
and  Huntingdon  holding  the  passages  of  the 
Welland  and  the  Ouse  respectively,  Rochester 
the  crossing  of  the  Medway  by  the  great  road 
to  the  Continent,  Lancaster  the  narrow  passage 
between  the  Pennine  Hills  and  the  Irish  Sea. 

But  many  other  towns  have  no  such  claim, 
and  yet  prove  of  capital  importance  in  the 
military  history  of  England,  and  that  be- 
cause, having  arisen  for  reasons  other  than 
military,  they  found,  once  they  had  risen, 
excellent  bases  of  supply  and  centres  of 
population  which  could  feed  and  equip  an 
army  on  the  march. 

Of  this  kind  are  Derby,  Warwick,  Northamp- 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      43 

ton,  Hereford,  etc. ;  and,  of  cities  founded 
before  the  Roman  military  scheme,  or  at  any 
rate  not  demonstrably  necessary  to  its  strategic 
plan,  Gloucester,  Worcester,  Salisbury,  Leicester, 
Winchester  and  York. 

These  great  places,  and  fifty  others,  once 
established,  become  necessarily  depots  for 
supply.  They  are  fortified.  Once  fortified 
they  become  obstacles  as  well  as  depots ; 
refuges  as  well  as  obstacles,  and  the  whole 
scheme  of  warfare  is  bound  to  turn  upon 
their  position.  We  shall  find  them  per- 
petually recurrent  in  the  story  of  our  wars. 
Each  has  its  castle,  its  garrison,  its  walls,  its 
stores,  and  power  to  aid  a  force. 

The  Entries. 

Lastly,  we  have  the  gates  into  the  country 
from  abroad. 

Of  these  by  far  the  most  important  are  the 
Straits  of  Dover. 

Here  Dover  itself,  formerly  possessing  an 
enclosed  inlet  of  the  sea,  is  the  chief  entry 
(with  its  castle  defending  it),  but  in  Roman 
times  the  Lympne  flats  (then  a  harbour)  and 
Richboro'  (then  an  island  in  the  strait  of 
Thanet)  provided  alternative  entries,  and, 
perhaps,  Reculvers.  Canterbury  is  the  common 
depot  of  the  straits.     Farther  down  channel 


44  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

Pevensey,  and  later  Rye  and  Winehelsea, 
entered  into  the  same  scheme,  and  one  may 
say  that  the  coast  from  Beachy  Head  to  the  North 
Foreland,  with  its  key  at  Dover,  is  the  gate  into 
England  from  Europe. 

A  second  crossing  is  that  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Seine  to  the  landlocked  waters  behind 
the  Isle  of  Wight.  Here  Portsmouth  (and 
earlier  Portchester)  and  Southampton  (and 
earlier  Bitterne)  are  the  entries. 

From  the  first  of  these  entries,  as  from  the 
second,  roads  immediately  strike  for  London, 
and  by  invasion  along  these  the  south-east 
of  the  island  was  secured. 

The  other  entries,  with  few  exceptions,  are 
accidents  of  the  shores  :  harbours  which  are 
chosen  for  their  shelter,  but  in  no  relation  to 
the  proximity  of  a  neighbouring  stronghold 
or  to  the  scheme  of  internal  communication. 
Here  invaders  or  exiles  land  for  the  conveni- 
ence of  a  port,  but  not  as  part  of  any  fixed 
plan  :  of  such  are  Miljord  Haven ;  the  mouth 
of  the  Humber  (the  now-swallowed-up 
Ravenspur  in  earlier,  Hull  in  later  times),  the 
ports  of  the  Wash,  such  as  Boston  and  Lynn, 
Preston  upon  the  Ribble,  Lyme  Regis  and 
Weymouth,  Shoreham  in  Sussex,  Orford  in 
Suffolk  or  Fowey  in  Cornwall,  against  which 
Essex  was  pressed  in  the  Civil  Wars;    with 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      45 

many  others.  All  these  are  eccentric  to  the 
true  strategics  of  the  island,  and  are  but  a 
crowd  of  accidental  entries  into  it  from  the 
outside.  They  are  like  the  windows  of  a  house 
of  which  the  south  coast  entries  between  the 
Solent  and  the  Thames  are  the  doors. 

Within  this  strategical  framework  of  Eng- 
land, with  its  great  ridge  of  the  Pennines,  its 
bar  to  northward  advance  by  the  Mersey  and 
the  Ribble  on  either  side  of  these,  its  great 
obstacle,  depot,  and  nodal  point  of  London, 
its  line  of  the  Thames,  its  continental  entry 
from  the  south  and  east,  there  is  played  out 
a  business  of  war  from  the  first  century  to  the 
seventeenth. 

I  propose  in  this  book  to  group  that  business 
as  follows — 

First — ^the  Roman  Conquest,  to  which, 
must  be  added  a  mention  of  the  pirate  in- 
vasions of  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  (we 
know  scarcely  anything  of  them),  and  some 
words  on  the  struggle  of  the  ninth  century 
with  the  Pagans,  though  that  rough-and- 
tumble,  which  nearly  cost  us  our  lives,  had 
little  analysable  strategy  about  it. 

Secondly — ^the  Norman  Conquest. 

Thirdly— the  Feudal  Fighting  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  which  I  will  divide  into  three  chapters, 
the  "  Campaign  of  Magna  Charta  "  in  1215-16, 


46  WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

the    "Barons'    Wars"    of    1264-5,    and   the 
"  Wars  of  the  Roses,"  1452-1485. 

Lastly — I  will  deal  with  the  Civil  Wars  of 
the  seventeenth  century. 

I  will  briefly  add,  by  way  of  appendix  to 
our  domestic  military  history,  the  very  simple 
strategics  of  the  various  expeditions  into 
Scotland  and  Wales. 

A  few  general  considerations  must  be 
touched  upon  before  we  deal  with  these 
separate  divisions  of  our  subject. 

The  first  is  this  :  The  larger  lines  of 
strategics  within  the  island  only  appear  when 
some  universal  effort  is  being  made,  as,  for 
instance,  when  the  Romans  or  the  Normans 
are  attempting  their  conquest,  or  when  the 
whole  land  more  or  less  is  harried  by  savage 
incursions  from  the  North  Sea.  Under  such 
conditions  the  whole  map  of  Britain  is  brought 
into  play,  and  the  great  natural  roads  of 
access  towards  the  objectives  of  either  party, 
the  great  natural  obstacles  present  in  the 
use  of  such  roads,  are  plainly  apparent  and' 
mould  the  whole  story.  But  in  other  inter- 
ludes, when  fighting  was  more  promiscuous 
and  its  objects  less  general,  the  large  strategical 
lines  of  the  island  either  disappear  or  become 
exceedingly  confused.  Thus,  in  the  petty 
warfare  waged   between  the  kinglets  of   the 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY      47 

Dark  Ages,  it  is  impossible  to  establish  any 
reasonable  strategical  plan.  Again,  in  the 
anarchy  of  Stephen's  reign,  and  the  struggle 
between  that  King  and  the  Empress  Matilda, 
you  get  no  clear  lines  by  which  the  move- 
ments and  effects  of  fighting  bodies  can  be 
explained.  On  the  other  hand,  the  great 
Norman  sweep  from  south  to  north,  and  even 
the  major  operations  of  the  Barons'  Wars  in 
the  thirteenth  century,  lend  themselves  to  a 
true  strategical  plan. 

Secondly — ^the  Island  of  Britain  is  remark- 
able for  its  immunity  from  organised  invasion 
on  the  part  of  civilised  armies. 

Were  it  otherwise  we  should  find  the  history 
of  warfare  in  Britain  perpetually  following 
certain  well-defined  tracks,  as  does,  for  in- 
stance, the  history  of  warfare  in  Northern 
Italy  or  in  the  Netherlands,  both  of  which 
districts  of  Europe  have  throughout  recorded 
history  suffered  repeated  invasion  by  properly 
organised  forces,  always  bound  to  enter 
through  the  same  gates  and  to  follow  certain 
lines  laid  down  by  nature  for  the  advance  and 
retreat  of  great  bodies  of  men. 

Save  for  such  rare  episodes,  English  military 
history  is  taken  up  with  domestic  war. 

Now,  it  is  the  characteristic  of  such  warfare 
that  the  two  parties  to  it  do  not  proceed  each 


48  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

from  a  distant  base  towards  a  distant  objective. 
Cities  are  often  divided  against  themselves, 
at  least  in  the  inception  of  such  struggles. 
The  strongholds  which  attach  themselves  to 
the  one  or  to  the  other  party  will  be  scattered 
more  or  less  at  random  throughout  the  whole 
kingdom.  Therefore  a  Civil  War — especially 
in  its  earlier  stages — is  strategically  complex, 
and  it  is  only  towards  the  later  part  of  it, 
when  one  side  is  definitely  getting  the  upper 
hand  and  has  subdued  whole  districts,  that 
the  main  lines  of  strategy  reappear. 

Thirdly — it  must  be  remarked  that  warfare 
upon  any  large  scale  has  been  unknown  in 
England  since  the  Reformation.  If  we  include 
the  Civil  Wars,  small  as  were  the  numbers 
engaged  and  slight  as  was  the  military  effort 
they  involved,  we  can  yet  say  that  England 
has  not  experienced  warfare  upon  any  scale 
worthy  of  historical  record  during  the  whole 
period  in  which  modern  arms  have  developed 
since  (and  during)  the  wars  of  Louis  XIV. 

All  that  great  story  of  the  professional 
armies  of  the  eighteenth  century  leaves 
England  without  any  strategical  history,  and 
one  of  the  few  great  strategists  of  whom 
human  annals  bear  record,  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough,  expanded  the  military  story 
of  his  nation  in  fields  that  had  nothing  to 


STRATEGICAL  TOPOGRAPHY   49 

do  with  the  topography  of  his  own  land  and 
with  troops  few  of  whom  were  English.  The 
only  military  role  he  played  in  England  itself 
was  the  exceedingly  unpleasant  part  of  a 
domestic  traitor  who  would  sell,  as  occasion 
served,  his  King,  his  country,  or  his  sister. 

This  singular  distaste  which  Englishmen 
have  shown  during  the  last  three  hundred 
years  for  an  armed  decision  cuts  out  of  the 
military  history  we  are  about  to  examine 
the  whole  development  of  modern  artillery 
and  of  modern  fortification.  This  last  gap  is 
in  particular  regrettable  because  it  is  of  a 
special  interest  to  the  student  of  military 
things;  the  way  in  which  earthworks  arose 
to  meet  the  new  ballistic  arm  which,  from  the 
seventeenth  century  onwards,  has  decided 
sieges,  the  classical  effect  of  Vauban ;  the 
whole  story  of  defence  between  the  Dutch 
Wars  of  Louis  XIV  and  the  capital  modern 
example  of  Port  Arthur;  the  perfection 
of  the  old  enclosed  star  with  its  ditch, 
bastion,  and  hornwork,  yielding  gradually  to 
the  advance  of  artillery,  and  replaced  by  the 
modern  Ring  fortress.  All  this  is  absent 
from  the  history  of  British  warfare.  Those 
numerous  towns  scattered  over  the  Continent, 
and  especially  thick  in  north-eastern  France, 
where   you   may   see   still   intact   the   great 


50  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

defences  of  that  age  of  earthworks,  have  no 
parallel  here  (save  in  one  exception,  which 
is  to  be  discovered  in  the  works  round  the 
North  Gate  of  Berwick),  while  the  modern 
Ring  fortress  is  utterly  unknown;  and  even 
our  great  naval  bases  remain,  for  all  purposes 
of  attack  by  land,  unprotected  at  the 
moment  I  write  these  words. ^ 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST 


I 


In  order  to  understand  the  strategics  of 
Britain  when  it  was  part  of  the  Roman 
Empire  and  during  the  Conquest  which 
preceded  its  existence  as  a  province,  it  is 
necessary  to  observe  a  certain  number  of 
fundamental  points,  some  of  common  know- 
ledge, others  less  often  remarked. 

(1)  That  the  coming  and  going  of  military 
effort  throughout  that  period  radiated  from 

^  July  1912.  It  may  interest  the  reader  to  know  that 
Portsmoutli,  the  only  naval  base  of  which  a  serious  defence 
was  ever  attempted,  and  one  singularly  adapted  for  such 
defence,  has  now  been  definitely  abandoned  under  a  theory 
that  the  moment  the  Fleet  ceases  to  be  supreme  at  sea,  a 
modern  British  Government  would  accept  peace  upon  the 
enemy's  terms. 


The.  Great.  Wail  A  A 

The  Scotch  »ajl B  8  „_. 

Obstacle  ofthi  Hill  Country  /Z3 


"ch  Vjc  ConquesL  procadtii 


Bart/ioloTien,  td'' 


52  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

a  centre  at  Rome.     In  other  words,  the  effort 
was  an  effort  from  South  to  North. 

(2)  Both  to  the  genius  of  the  Roman 
civiHsation  and  to  the  mihtary  practice 
consequent  upon  that  genius  the  sea  was 
abhorrent :  to  occupy  a  province  separated 
by  the  sea  was  for  the  Roman  government  an 
exceptional  feat.  The  shortest  sea  passages 
take  an  exceptional  prominence  in  the  first 
four  centuries  of  our  era,  and  provinces  sepa- 
rated by  the  sea — ^as  Africa  and  Britain — 
are  raided  by  barbarians  (and  ultimately  lost) 
with  greater  ease  than  those  which  had  a 
continuous  communication  by  land.^ 

(3)  The  Roman  Empire  was  a  system  based 
in  the  main  upon  agriculture.  It  made  little 
effort  to  extend  its  rule  over  barren  or  moun- 
tainous tracts.  That  is  why  there  was  no 
determined  effort  to  occupy  the  Baltic  Plain 
and  the  more  northern  of  the  Germanics,  the 
Marshes  of  Frisia,  etc.  That  is  why  the 
Pyreneean  tribes  largely  escaped  from  the 
Roman  organisation.  That  is  why  Brittany, 
Wales,  and  the  Highlands — though  two  of 
them  fell  within  the  boundaries  of  the  Empire 
— retained,  and  partly  retain  to  this  day,  their 
original  speech  and  customs. 

1  Let  it  be  noted  that  the  ''  fault"  between  Greek  and 
Latin,  East  and  West,  was  the  Adriatic. 


THE   ROMAN  CONQUEST  53 

(4)  The  occupation  and  development  of 
the  barbaric  districts  in  the  West  during 
the  period  of  Central  Government  from 
Rome  involves  in  each  conquest  a  strategy 
more  or  less  sharply  divided  into  two 
periods. 

(a)  The  strategy  of  occupation  and  of  estab- 
lishing bases  :  that  is  the  Conquest. 

(b)  The  strategy  of  a  later  more  gradual 
advance  and  exploitation  following  on  the 
Conquest. 

This  last  is  always  concerned  with  the 
defences  of  the  frontiers  of  the  empire,  save 
in  the  case  of  civil  wars  which  do  not  despoil 
the  citizens  but  are  fought  as  it  were  "  over 
their  heads."     Therefore — 

(5)  The  Roman  army  was  in  the  main 
stationed  upon  the  frontiers  and  had  the 
work  of  guarding  them  as  best  might  be  from 
irruption.  There  was  always  a  pressure  of 
the  barbarian  to  break  in  and  enjoy  the  results 
of  Roman  cultivation  and  law,  and  that 
without  the  pains  of  submitting  to  Roman 
discipline.  The  number  of  these  barbarians 
was,  of  course,  never  to  be  compared  with 
that  of  civilised  mankind  in  western  Europe, 
but  these  same  barbarians  were  a  perpetual 
menace  because  they  had  everything  to  gain 
and  nothing  to  lose. 


54  WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

Now  if  we  apply  these  principles  to  the 
Conquest  of  Britain  by  the  Roman  forces  we 
shall  see  why  the  lines  of  the  great  marches 
(such  at  least  as  have  come  down  to  us),  of 
the  limits  to  which  Roman  rule  extended,  and 
of  the  strongholds  that  were  set  up,  lay  where 
they  did. 

The  Roman  entry  into  Britain  lay  at  first 
entirely  and  always  principally  through  the 
Straits  of  Dover,  a  gate  whose  unique  value 
determined  the  whole  strategical  scheme  of 
the  island.  When  later  an  alternative  entry 
was  established  between  the  mouth  of  the 
Seine  and  the  Solent,  it  was  apparently  as  far 
west  as  the  Romans  cared  to  carry  their  lines 
of  regular  communication. 

From  these  two  entries,  but  notably  from 
the  first,  the  Romans  came  upon  all  that 
southern  and  central  part  of  Britain  which 
may  roughly  be  called  "  The  Plain,"  and 
which  it  was  their  business  to  colonise,  develop, 
and  exploit.  The  extreme  south-west,  the 
peninsula  of  Devon  and  Cornwall,  they  long 
neglected.  There  were  three  other  regions 
which  could  play  no  part  in  their  scheme  of 
development,  which  were  exceptions  or  hin- 
drances or  boundaries  to  their  civilising  effort : 
these  three  regions  were  the  Welsh  hills,  the 
Pennines  (including  the  group  of  hills  round 


THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST  55 

the   lakes  and  beyond  the  Solway),  and  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland. 

The  Welsh  hills  led  nowhere.  Their  occupa- 
tion was  not  worth  the  Roman  while,  but  so 
long  as  irritating  forays  could  be  conducted 
from  them  down  eastward  on  to  the  plains  it 
was  necessary  to  control  or  at  least  to  check 
their  inhabitants.  But  we  should  form  a 
very  erroneous  opinion  of  those  great  four 
centuries  of  high  civilisation  from  which 
modern  Europe  sprang,  if  we  imagined  the 
Roman  mind  to  fall  into  what  is  called  now-a- 
days  the  "  Imperial  spirit,"  or  to  waste  effort 
upon  what  was  not  of  material  advantage 
to  the  commonwealth.  There  was  no  such 
object  discoverable  in  the  occupation  of  the 
Welsh  mountains,  nor  did  the  Roman  civilisa- 
tion ever  permeate  the  principality.  Wales 
was,  of  course,  affected,  as  was  all  western 
Europe,  by  the  Roman  idea,  because  that  idea 
was  coincident  with  civilisation  itself.  Wales 
afforded  a  sort  of  refuge  into  which  the  legends 
and  even  the  traditions  of  civilised  order,  as 
it  existed  when  the  first  pirates  came  to 
disturb  it,  might  retire  and  survive.  But 
Wales  was  not  in  the  first  four  centuries  what 
the  English  South  and  the  Midlands  were,  or 
what  Picardy  or  Normandy  were.  It  might 
rather  be  compared  to  that  land  of  the  Basques 


56  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

in  the  P3rrenees  at  whose  frontiers  the  Roman 
influence  seems  to  cease  which,  with  the 
exception  of  the  great  Roman  road  traversing 
it,  is  almost  unaffected  by  the  work  of  the  old 
civilisation,  and  which,  like  Wales,  has  retained 
a  tongue  older  than  the  advent  of  the  Legions. 

Of  the  Highlands,  or  Caledonia,  the  same  is 
true,  but  in  an  even  greater  degree.  For 
long  there  was  an  effort  of  the  Roman  arms 
against  the  Borders,  as  a  region  whence  raids 
might  perpetually  be  directed  against  the 
wealth  and  cultivation  of  the  Lowlands. 
Agricola  had  some  vast  and  unconcluded 
plan  of  conquest.  It  came  to  nothing.  Four 
generations  later  Severus  marched  up  against 
the  same  unexploitable  and  barren  land,  but 
there  was  no  inclusion  of  its  glens  and  moun- 
tains within  the  empire,  although  the  attempt 
to  protect  from  its  clans  the  fields  of  the 
Lowlands  determined  much  of  the  strategy 
of  the  island. 

With  the  third  hill-region,  the  Pennines,  it 
was  otherwise.  This  irregular  mass  of  moor, 
furnishing  no  wealth  to  the  conqueror  save 
here  and  there  metals,  was  not  so  situated 
that  it  could  be  neglected  as  Wales  was,  or 
left  outside  the  Roman  orbit  as  was  Caledonia. 
The  fertile  plain  of  York,  the  arable  land  of 
Lancashire,  were  divided  one  from  the  other 


THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST  57 


I 

"Tby  the  long  tongue  of  the  Pennines,  and 
though  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the 
Lowlands  of  Scotland  were  but  sparsely 
inhabited,  yet  it  was  a  continual  motive  in 
Roman  civilisation  to  occupy  them  because 
they  formed  a  base  for  agricultural  wealth. 
That  irregular  mass  of  hills,  therefore,  which 
includes  the  Cheviots,  Galloway,  the  Lake 
District  and  the  Pennines,  was  treated  in  a 
third  and  different  fashion  from  that  which 
the  Romans  used  with  Wales  upon  the  one 
hand  and  Caledonia  upon  the  other.  The  sub- 
mission of  tribes  in  Galloway  was  obtained 
but  not  enforced.  The  arable  lands  of  the 
great  Yorkshire  plain  and  of  the  Lancastrian 
western  belt  were  both  permanently  occupied 
and  permanently  developed;  and  since  the 
tongue  of  the  Pennines  between  these  was  a 
very  serious  obstacle  to  the  communication 
of  armies  and  of  government,  it  was  necessary 
to  bridge  it  with  roads  permanently  held  by 
fortified  posts.  Those  roads  followed  the  lines 
which  communication  has  since  always  used, 
much  the  same  as  those  which  the  principal 
railways  take  to-day. 

The  principal  line  on  which  that  obstacle 
of  the  Pennines  was  cut  was  the  gap  which 
may  indifferently  be  called  that  of  Ilkley  or 
of   Skipton.     Through  this   the   road   which 


58  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

had  its  western  base  at  Ribchester  followed 
past  Broughton  to  Ilkley  and  thence  through 
Tadcaster  to  York. 

This  main  passage  of  the  Pennine  obstacle 
permitting  communication  between  forces  to 
the  west  and  to  the  east  of  it  would  have  left 
each  in  peril  at  any  considerable  distance 
from  its  two  termini.  Northward  from  that 
gap  to  the  Wall  (which  we  shall  see  in  a  moment 
was  the  permanent  limit  of  Roman  power) 
was  a  distance  of  over  eighty  miles.  South- 
ward, to  the  last  fastnesses  of  the  Peak,  the 
distance  is  very  nearly  as  much.  Either  of 
these  distances  means  four  days'  heavy 
marching,  though  a  small  body  heavily  pressed 
might  attempt  the  matter  in  three. 

Suppose,  therefore,  two  forces  making  their 
way  northward — the  one  by  the  Lancastrian, 
the  other  by  the  York  plain — they  would  be 
operating  in  isolation  one  from  the  other  when 
either  was  more  then  twenty  miles  to  the 
north  or  to  the  south  of  Ribchester  upon  the 
west,  or  of  Ilkley  upon  the  east. 

We  shall  see  in  a  moment  that  advance  by 
the  east  as  from  the  west  was  a  necessary  part 
of  the  strategics  of  the  island  during  the 
Roman  occupation,  and  it  was  essential  to 
cut  the  obstacle  of  the  Pennines  in  more 
places  than  this  one  bridge  of  the  Skipton  Gap. 


THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST  59 

So  far  as  we  can  judge  by  existing  remains 
the  obstacle  was  cut  in  at  least  two  other 
places.  It  was  cut  from  the  Valley  of  the 
Tees  to  that  of  the  Eden,  over  the  high  but 
workable  gap  now  used  by  the  railway 
between  Bowes  and  Kirkby  Stephen.^  This 
communication  between  west  and  east 
bisected,  as  nearly  as  was  practicable,  the 
northern  eighty  miles.  As  for  the  southern, 
between  the  Ilkley  Gap  and  the  Peak,  they 
appear  to  have  been  cut  by  a  way  that  can 
be  followed  from  Manchester  to  Slack,  which 
thence  proceeded  down  the  valley  of  the 
Calder.  This  line  does  not  exactly  halve  the 
southern  part  of  the  Pennine  obstacle,  but  is 
at  any  rate  a  good  day's  march  southward 
down  from  the  Ilkley  Gap;  while  over  the 
Peak  district  itself  there  seem  to  have  been 
several  ways,  two  converging  on  Buxton  and 
one  (not  so  certainly  Roman)  passing  half 
way  between  that  town  and  the  Manchester- 
Slack  road,  which  I  have  already  mentioned. 

We  saw  in  the  last  section  that  of  the  various 
sorts  of  obstacle  which  Britain  presents  the 
rivers  would  prove  the  most  serious,  and  it  is 
upon  the  rivers  that  the  Roman  conquest 

^  The  line  runs  from  Greta  Bridge  through  Ilaycross  to 
Brough,  always  a  little  northward  of  the  modern  railway, 
and  more  to  the  north  of  it  after  the  high  land  is  left. 


60  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

turns.  They  are  the  limits  of  each  belt  of 
occupation  decided  upon  during  the  process 
of  the  conquest,  and  the  strategical  bridges 
over  them  determine  the  course  of  the  Roman 
roads  and  the  springing  up  of  the  Roman 
strongholds. 

The  main  great  obstacle  in  the  south  of 
England  is,  as  we  have  postulated,  the  Thames. 
In  Caesar's  abortive  invasion  (his  second),  as 
in  the  later  conquest,  the  Thames  is  the 
determining  factor  of  the  first  struggle.  In 
Caesar's  second  invasion  his  principal  difficulty 
was  to  find  a  crossing  of  the  Thames  in  order 
to  get  at  his  enemy,  Cassivellaunus,  whose 
territories  lay  north  of  London.  Where  Caesar 
crossed  has  been  the  subject  of  innumerable 
pamphlets,  papers,  and  even  books.  By  far 
the  greatest  authority  on  the  whole  subject  of 
this  invasion.  Dr.  Rice  Holmes,  has  deter- 
mined it  impossible  to  decide,  but  it  would 
seem  to  be  either  at  Cowey  Stakes  or  at 
Brentford. 

We  are  equally  ignorant  of  the  place  where 
the  Thames  was  passed  when  the  conquest 
of  the  island  was  seriously  attempted  nearly 
a  century  later  under  Claudius,  though  the 
best  inference  points  to  a  bridge  at  London. 

At  any  rate  the  Thames  is  the  great  main 
obstacle  upon  which  turns  the  strategy  both 


THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST  61 

w 

of  Csesar's  invasion  and  of  the  best  part  of  the 
conquest. 

But  apart  from  the  Thames  two  other 
rivers  stand  between  the  entry  into  the 
country  through  the  Straits  of  Dover  and  the 
approach  to  the  Thames  itself.  These  two 
are  the  Stour  and  the  Medway.  It  was  at 
the  Stour  that  Caesar  fought  his  first  big 
action.  It  was  at  the  Medway  that  Plautius, 
going  before  Claudius  as  his  general,  forced 
the  first  stand  of  the  British,  probably  near 
Rochester.  The  first  great  Roman  road  of 
the  conquest  lies  from  Dover  through  Canter- 
bury and  Rochester  to  London. 

When,  later,  the  landlocked  water  of  which 
Portsmouth  is  the  modern,  Porchester  the 
ancient,  entry  was  taken  as  an  alternative 
terminus  for  crossing  the  Channel,  another 
strategical  route  had  to  be  devised  for  the 
negotiation  of  the  Thames  obstacle  and  the 
reaching  of  London,  and  this  proceeded  at 
first  through  Bitterne  near  Southampton,  then 
through  Winchester  and  Silchester,  to  Staines, 
where  a  permanent  bridge  was  established, 
while,  later,  a  second  and  shorter  cut  was 
made  through  Sussex  for  reasons  I  shall 
presently  describe. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  first  Roman  strate- 
gical efforts  were,  in  point  of  time,  concerned 


62  WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

with  the  negotiation  of  the  rivers  of  the 
south  and  east;  the  Stour  was  crossed  at 
Canterbury,  the  great  marching  road  led 
across  the  Medway  at  Rochester  to  a  bridge 
at  London ;  a  second  and  later  approach  ran 
from  the  great  port  on  the  Solent,  crossed 
the  Itchen  at  Bitterne,  and,  curving  round 
by  the  west,  struck  the  Thames  at  Staines, 
approaching  London  from  that  point  by  the 
north  bank  of  the  river. 

To  these  two  simple  elements  in  the  strate- 
gics of  the  south-eastern  district,  which  was 
the  base  from  which  all  the  conquest  of 
Britain  proceeded,  a  third  element  should 
be  added.  The  length  of  the  detour  from 
Portsmouth  to  London  by  way  of  Winchester 
and  Staines  was  so  considerable  as  to  suggest 
during  some  period  of  the  Roman  occupation 
the  building  of  an  expensive  but  strategically 
valuable  short  cut  by  which  in  time  of  need 
troops  could  be  hastened  to  what  was  soon 
the  largest  town  in  Britain  and  the  main 
crossing  of  the  Thames. 

A  military  obstacle  far  less  formidable,  of 
course,  than  such  a  range  as  the  Pennines 
or  than  any  considerable  river  menaced  an 
army  trying  to  take  the  shortest  cut  from 
the  south  coast  to  London,  and  this  was  the 
clay  land  of  the  Sussex  Weald.     It  would  be 


I 


THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST  63 


error  to  imagine  that  there  was  either 
dense  forest  or  a  complete  absence  of  culture 
and  habitation  in  this  belt,  but  without  a  care- 
fully engineered  road  it  would  proceed  for  a 
breadth  of  over  a  day's  march  on  two  things 
which  armies  must  avoid :  bad  water  and  bad 
going.  Save  after  a  spell  of  dry  weather,  it 
would  be  very  difficult  to  get  a  considerable 
body  of  men  across  the  innumerable  ghylls 
and  the  deep  clay  of  the  Weald.  A  line  as 
direct  as  physical  circumstances  would  allow 
was  therefore  run  from  Chichester  to  London. 
Much  of  this  military  work  has  survived  and, 
though  bearing  a  different  name  in  various 
parts,  is  generally  known  by  the  title  of  The 
Stane  Street. 

To  this  simple  scheme  of  south-eastern 
Britain  in  the  strategics  of  the  Roman  period 
there  is  nothing  to  add  save  that  Canterbury 
was  the  depot  for  various  landings  round  the 
Promontory  of  Kent,  that  a  fortified  post 
existed — perhaps  for  the  purposes  of  watching 
pirate  raids,  or  perhaps  as  a  fort  in  connection 
with  London — at  Pevensey,  and  that  though 
all  vestiges  but  two  have  disappeared  of  its 
trajectory,  a  road  ran  from  London  to  the 
nearest  point  upon  the  coast,  the  mouth  of 
the  Adur. 

We  may  sum  up,  then,  and  say  that  the 


64  WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

scheme  of  south-eastern  England  for  Roman 
military  purposes  was  an  approach  by  two 
main  roads  from  either  of  the  two  alternative 
entries  into  the  country,  each  road  crossing  the 
Thames  by  its  own  bridge,  and  the  western  one 
shortened  by  a  straighter  line  engineered  at 
some  unknown  period  during  the  occupation. 

But,  as  I  have  said,  this  south-eastern 
region,  let  us  say  200  miles  by  100,  though 
its  possession  gave  an  invader  three  of 
the  principal  towns,  the  main  harbours,  the 
wealthiest  corn  lands  and  all  that  he  needed 
to  proceed  upon  his  task,  was  only  a  base  from 
which  the  rest  of  the  Conquest  must  proceed, 
and  I  will  next  show  what  extension  that 
effort  took,  upon  what  lines,  and  what  part  the 
rivers  play  in  delimiting  it. 

Four  main  phases  established  Roman  rule 
in  Britain  after  the  south-east  (with  its  two, 
and  later,  its  three,  great  roads  on  London) 
was  secured.     These  were — 

(1)  The  occupation  of  the  country  up  to 
a  line  determined  by  the  Exe,  the  Lower 
Severn,  and  the  line  of  two  rivers,  the  Ouse  and 
the  Welland,  which  exactly  cut  off  South- 
Eastern  England,  making  one  line  from 
Tewkesbury  to  the  Wash. 

(2)  The  extension  northwards  of  this  first 
occupation    into    the    Midlands;     with    the 


THE  ROMAN   CONQUEST  65 

corresponding  attempt  upon  the  Welsh  hills 
which  almost  ended  in  disaster  and  in  an 
abandonment  of  the  island  on  account  of  the 
great  rebellion  in  the  south  and  east. 

(3)  The  long  business  with  the  Brigantes, 
that  is  with  all  that  we  now  call  the  North 
Country,  and  that  business  dominated  by 
the  obstacle  of  the  Pennines. 

(4)  The  temptation  to  exploit  the  Lowlands 
of  Scotland  with  the  insuperable  difficulties 
in  the  face  of  a  successful  exploitation  thereof, 
this  imposing  a  lasting  hesitation  upon  the 
limit  which  the  Empire  should  here  set  to  its 
administration,  and  involving  the  construc- 
tion of  the  two  walls. 

When  we  have  examined  these  four  phases 
of  the  Roman  Conquest,  having  no  informa- 
tion worth  the  gathering  of  the  strategics 
following  upon  the  conquest,  we  shall  have 
concluded  this  first  section  in  the  elements 
of  British  Strategical  History,  in  which  the 
rivers  were  the  principal  determinants,  and 
enter  its  second  phase,  the  Dark  Ages,  in 
which  the  rivers  are  again  the  determinants, 
no  longer  as  obstacles,  but  as  avenues  of 
advance  for  the  Pirates. 

To  fix  a  strategical  frontier  for  the  first 
period  of  the  occupation  might  seem  to  a 
modern   Englishman   a   difficult   thing.     We 


66  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

are  so  used  to  numerous  made  roads,  to  travel 
by  railway,  to  bridged  rivers,  etc.,  that  we 
have  lost  the  "  eye  "  for  a  military  obstacle 
in  modern  England,  and  we  see  none  definitely 
drawn  upon  the  map,  protecting  the  south  and 
east  from  sea  to  sea. 

Though  we  are  not  absolutely  certain 
where  that  first  strategical  frontier  was 
found,  we  can  infer  upon  evidence  which  it 
would  be  too  long  to  detail  here,  but  which  is 
sufficient  for  our  conclusion,  that  it  lay  in  a 
line  drawn  from  the  mouth  of  the  Welland 
to  the  neighbourhood  of  Gloucester.  On  the 
west  it  was  the  line  of  the  Exe.  Roughly 
speaking,  therefore,  a  triangle  was  enclosed 
and  occupied,  which  triangle  was  the  wealthiest 
and  most  populated,  and  most  easily  garri- 
soned and  developable  part  of  ancient  Britain. 
Let  us  examine  the  nature  of  such  a  temporary 
frontier. 

The  Severn,  to  well  above  Gloucester,  is 
an  obstacle  too  formidable  to  need  comment, 
but  the  Warwickshire  Avon  is  also  capable 
of  defence  under  primitive  conditions  as 
far  as  the  neighbourhood  of  Coventry,  that 
is,  well  above  the  modern  site  of  Warwick.  ^ 

^  So  true  is  this,  that  the  Fosse  Way  bends  to  the  right  in 
order  to  avoid  a  passage  of  the  river  below  the  point  I  have 
named.     It  is  pointing  right  at  the  town  of  Warwick 


THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST  67 

This  line  of  the  Avon  was  further  strength- 
ened by  a  considerable  string  of  woods.  It 
is  always  an  error  peculiarly  facile  and  mis- 
leading to  exaggerate  the  amount  of  woodland 
in  ancient  Britain  compared  with  that  of  the 
present  time,  but  it  can  be  historically  proved 
that  in  the  case  of  the  upper  courses  of  the 
Warwickshire  Avon  a  considerable  forest, 
which  was  later  as  considerably  reduced, 
existed. 

If  a  man  follows  the  Avon  to  its  very  first 
springs  he  is  within  half  an  hour's  walk  of 
the  first  springs  of  the  Welland.  It  would  be 
more  accurate  to  say,  perhaps,  that  the  very 
highest  waters  of  these  brooks,  where  each 
river  rises,  almost  touch,  but  at  any  rate  a 
man  leaving  the  Avon  near  Wellford  Station, 
is  on  the  Welland  at  Bos  worth  Hall  within 
two  miles  of  walking. 

So  high  up  in  their  courses  neither  stream 
affords  a  strategical  obstacle,  but  the  Welland 


until  it  reaches  Moreton,  when  it  bends  off  eastward.  It 
does  not  attempt  the  Avon  until  right  away  up  at  Church 
Lawford,  and  having  crossed  it  bends  to  the  west  again. 
The  Warwickshire  Avon  is  indeed  only  crossed  in  one 
place  by  an  ancient  road,  and  that  is  by  the  Buckle^  but 
that  is  frankly  an  engineering  feat,  and  its  character  in 
no  way  interferes  with  the  truth  that  the  Warwickshire 
Avon  was  a  true  strategic  frontier,  for  the  Buckle  Street 
is  carried  across  the  low-lying  and  originally  marshy  land 
of  Bidford  by  a  causeway. 


68  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 


does  begin  to  have  some  such  effect  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Market  Harborough.  A 
few  miles  below,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Ashley,  that  effect  is  very  pronounced,  and 
land  which  was  originally  marshy  land  is 
clearly  apparent.  From  that  point  unin- 
terruptedly to  the  sea,  the  Welland  forms 
a  well-marked  and  highly  defensible  line. 
Thus  to  cross  it  at  Stamford  the  great  Roman 
road  to  the  north  had  to  pass  by  an  engineered 
causeway  which  has  given  the  town  its  name, 
while  immediately  below  that  point  begin 
marshes  which  even  in  their  modern  shapcMl 
have  been  hardly  reclaimed  from  the  sea,  an<fl| 
into  the  creeks  of  which  a  high  tide  reached  in 
Roman  times.  Roughly  speaking,  then,  tb 
gap  or  gate  in  this  first  strategical  frontier 
the  Roman  was,  in  its  broadest  acceptation, 
matter  of  thirty  miles,  or  a  day's  march,  o: 
either  side  of  a  central  station,  and  where  tha 
central  station  stood  we  can  fairly  well  fix, 
although  the  temporary  work  of  the  early 
occupation  is  naturally  overlaid  by  later 
work. 

Right  through  that  gap  runs  the  Watling 
Street,  the  great  Roman  line  of  communica- 
tion from  the  south-east  to  the  north-west. 
A  garrison  upon  that  line  would  command  the 
gap.     Towcester,  though  a  good  day's  march 


m 

I 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST  69 

to  the  south  of  the  line  itself,  did  so  command 
the  gap,  for  any  considerable  body  attempting 
to  pass  it  could  be  struck  by  a  force  at 
Towcester  to  the  left  or  to  the  right  as  it 
did  so. 

The  reason  that  the  Exe  formed  a  natural 
boundary  obstacle  upon  the  west  lies  in  the 
rugged  nature  of  the  country  beyond  that 
river  in  the  Damnonian  Peninsula.  The 
great  system  of  straight  Roman  roads  does 
not  penetrate  beyond  the  Exe,  and  though 
it  is  true  that  the  upper  waters  of  that  river 
are  a  mere  brawling  stream  and  no  obstacle 
at  all,  it  must  be  remembered  that  Exmoor, 
through  which  they  run,  is  in  itself  a  formidable 
and  considerable  obstacle.  From  at  least 
Tiverton  downwards  to  the  sea,  the  Exe  is 
a  true  boundary,  and  the  gate  between 
Tiverton  and  Exmoor,  which  we  may  make 
as  narrow  as  we  please,  would  be  at  its 
broadest  quite  easy  to  guard  even  if  there 
were  formidable  forces  menacing  the  Romans 
to  the  west  of  that  line.  But  there  were 
none. 

In  the  first  phase,  then,  of  the  occupation, 
you  have  the  strategical  frontier  of  the 
Welland,  the  Avon,  and  the  Severn  continued 
in  the  line  of  the  Exe,  and  thus  enclosing  all 
that  was  most  valuable  and  most  populated 


k 


70  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

in  the  province  which  Rome  was  attempting 
to  annex. 

The  position  and  numbers  of  the  forces 
used  by  the  invader  do  not  concern  us  in 
this  study  of  strategic  topography.  But  it  is 
worth  remarking  that  even  so  early  Colchester, 
St.  Albans,  and  London  in  the  heart  of  the 
newly  annexed  district  were  organised  as 
Roman  towns. 

The  next  phase  consists  in  the  further 
advance  of  the  Romans  into  the  Midlands, 
and  the  military  peril  which  this  rapid  ex- 
tension involved.  The  forward  movement 
occupied  some  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  from, 
say,  the  year  45  or  46  to,  say,  the  year  60  or 
61  of  our  era.  It  was,  perhaps,  in  49  that  a 
garrison  was  moved  up  to  Lincoln  on  the  one 
side,  and  probably  to  Wroxeter  under  the 
Wrekin  on  the  other,  and  the  object  of  all 
that  forward  movement  was  a  task  which 
invariably  falls  upon  a  conqueror,  and  is  the 
most  difficult  of  his  problems  ;  the  coercion 
of  districts  which,  while  exterior  to  those  it 
is  worth  his  while  to  occupy,  furnish  reservoirs 
of  discontent  and  of  opposition  :  hill -places  to 
which  the  defeated  rulers  of  the  fertile  plain 
can  retire,  and  fastnesses  of  little  value  to  com- 
mercial development,  but  of  indefinite  military 
value  as  a  reserve  whence  attack  can  proceed. 


THE  ROMAN   CONQUEST  71 

Two  such  general  areas  threatened  the  new 
Roman  province. 

First,  the  hill  land  of  the  Pennines,  which 
with  the  fertile  plain  on  either  side  and  all 
that  we  now  call  the  North  Country,  was  held 
in  the  main  by  the  confederation  of  the 
Brigantes. 

Secondly,  and  at  first  more  formidable,  the 
hill  land  of  Wales. 

It  was  against  this  second  outlying  part 
that  the  Roman  General  Ostorius  moved. 
The  hill  land  of  Wales  was  occupied  in  the 
north  by  the  Ordovices,  in  the  south  by  the 
Silures.  The  division  between  the  two  lies 
roughly  where  to-day  lies  the  division  between 
North  and  South  Wales,  namely,  in  that 
tongue  of  the  lowland  which  advances  into 
the  heart  of  the  country  and  reaches  the  base 
of  Plinlimmon.  It  was  against  the  first 
group,  or  Northern  Welsh,  that  Ostorius 
advanced,  and  this  because  in  so  doing  he 
could  cut  the  forces  that  harassed  him  into 
two.  He  marched  upon  the  mouth  of  the 
Dee,  thus  putting  himself  between  the 
Pennines  and  the  Welsh  hills.  He  broke 
an  attack  from  the  Brigantes  on  his  right,  and 
at  some  unknown  place  upon  his  left,  possibly 
as  far  south  as  Llanidloes,  he  defeated  the 
independent   tribe   and   that   powerful   King 


72  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

Caractacus,  who  had  fled  from  the  conquered 
territory,  and  had  menaced  the  first  Roman 
Border. 

Successive  generals  continued  an  unceasing 
war  against  the  tribesmen  of  the  north  and 
of  the  south  in  these  mountains.  The  chmax 
and  actually  the  final  success  of  that  effort 
consisted  in  a  march  along  the  northern  shore 
of  the  Principality,  the  crossing  of  the  Menai 
straits,  and  the  rout  of  the  British  in  Anglesey. 
It  was  in  the  year  60  that  this  took  place,  and 
it  was  thought  necessary  to  push  so  far  because 
Anglesey  was  the  centre  of  the  national 
religion,  and  therefore  of  the  national  resist- 
ance, so  far  as  it  could  be  called  national, 
which  the  Romans  had  to  face.  Under  the 
conditions  of  so  recent  a  conquest  that  distant 
march  beyond  the  Welsh  hills  was  an  error. 
The  country  in  the  south-east  rose,  a  very 
formidable  rebellion  destroyed  the  Roman 
population  of  the  three  new  towns,  St.  Albans, 
Colchester,  and  London,  and  the  rebellion 
under  the  leadership  of  Boadicea  was  within 
an  ace  of  success. 

If  the  battle  which  decided  its  fate  had 
gone  against  Roman  arms,  it  is  fairly  certain 
that  no  further  attempt  would  have  been  made 
to  re-occupy  the  province,  and  that  Britain 
would  have  suffered  the  fate  of  the  Baltic 


THE   ROMAN  CONQUEST  78 

Plain  or  of  Ireland,  and  have  remained 
external  to  the  body  of  ancient  civilisation. 
As  it  was  the  Roman  forces  returning  from 
the  north-west  under  the  leadership  of 
Suetonius  met  and  defeated  in  a  defensive 
battle  the  very  numerous  forces  with  which 
Boadicea  had  advanced  against  it  from  her 
crushing  of  the  Roman  garrisons  in  the  south 
and  east.  Where  that  action  was  fought 
we  have  no  means  of  deciding.  We  know 
its  tactical  character  from  a  fairly  minute 
description.  The  trained  Roman  body  far 
smaller  than  its  opponents  lay  in  occupation 
of  a  narrow  gap  between  two  woods. ^  The 
main  British  charge  was  broken,  and  after  the 
massacre  that  followed  South-Eastern  Britain 
was  finally  and  permanently  held. 

The  third  and  fourth  phases  of  strategic 
topography  during  the  Roman  occupation 
do  not  follow,  but  are  contemporary;  they 
consist  in  the  long  struggle  with  the  Brigantes 
whose  fastness  was  the  Pennines,  and  the 
attempt  to  include  the  lowlands  within  the 
area  which  the  Roman  system  of  development 
and  exploitation  determined  to  control. 

The  struggle  with  the  Brigantes  and  the 
varying  success  of  the  attempt  to  hold  the 

^  It  was  the  type  of  battle  of  which  Malplaquet  is  the 
niodern  instance,  so  far  as  position  is  concerned. 


74  WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

lowlands  of  Scotland  are  each  determined 
strategically  by  that  formation  of  the  northern 
hills  to  which  attention  has  already  been  called 
in  previous  pages. 

Rome  in  occupation  of  Lincoln  and  of  the 
fertile  plains  to  the  west  which  are  watered 
by  the  Idle,  the  Aire,  and  the  Don,  could  not 
leave  unconquered  the  great  Plain  of  York, 
which  was  as  much  a  matter  for  her  energies 
as  any  of  the  corn  lands  of  the  south. 

But  if  she  occupied  that  plain  she  must 
defend  it  against  incursions  from  the  wild 
hills  to  the  west  of  it. 

Rome  in  occupation  of  the  Vale  Royal 
and  of  the  magnificent  corn  lands  of  Cheshire 
could  not  neglect  the  Lancashire  lowlands 
immediately  before  her,  and  the  occupation 
of  these  would  further  contain  the  Pennine 
moors  and  shut  up  the  raiders  within  their 
unfertile  territory. 

But  Rome  in  occupation  of  the  arable  lands 
from  the  Mersey  to  Lancaster  and  the  Lake 
mountains  upon  the  west,  and  in  occupation  of 
the  great  plain  of  York  to  the  east,  was  in 
occupation  of  the  two  great  natural  ways  to 
the  north,  and  the  north  offered  not  only 
the  Valley  of  the  Eden  and  all  the  good  land 
of  which  Carlisle  is  the  natural  capital,  but 
also,  beyond   the   Scotch   hills,   that   belt  of 


THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST  75 

lowland  between  Clyde  and  Forth  which 
Rome  perpetually  coveted  and  yet  seems 
never  to  have  been  able  to  hold  in  a  really 
permanent  fashion. 

The  two  efforts  went  on  together  —  the 
effort  to  reduce  the  Brigantes  in  their  Pennine 
fastnesses,  and  the  effort  to  colonise  the  far 
north.  The  first  attempt,  though  very 
lengthy,  was  at  last  successful,  and  the  par- 
ticular mark  of  its  success  was  the  building 
of  that  great  wall  from  the  Tyne  to  the 
Solway  which  cut  off  the  Pennine  hill-men 
from  the  barbarians  of  the  north.  Four 
generations  of  men  saw  the  continuation  of 
the  struggle,  but  it  was  at  last  successful. 
The  last  revolt  of  the  Brigantes  was  made 
under  Julius  Verus  in  the  middle  of  the 
second  century,  and  from  that  moment  one 
may  regard  the  whole  of  Britain  south  of  the 
great  wall  as  definitely  subjected  to  Rome. 

The  proposal  to  extend  the  Roman  area 
by  yet  another  district  and  to  push  the 
frontiers  to  the  Clyde  and  the  Forth,  as  it 
was  begun  long  before  the  final  subjection 
of  the  Pennines,  so  continued  long  after  that 
date,  and  occupies  with  varying  fortunes  the 
whole  of  the  remaining  story  of  Rome  in  this 
island. 

It  was  as  early  as  the  year  80  that  the 


76  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

same  attempt  was  made,  and  Agricola  made 
it.  He  not  only  attempted  to  bring  civilisa- 
tion in  a  permanent  fashion  to  the  lowlands 
of  Scotland  as  far  as  the  line  of  the 
Forth  and  Clyde,  he  pushed  northward, 
fought  a  battle  against  the  islanders  at  some 
unknown  place  not  far  from  the  estuary  of  the 
Tay,  caused  the  country  to  be  circumnavi- 
gated, and  even  had  thoughts  of  an  expedition 
against  Ireland.  But  immediately  succeeding 
upon  this  first  attempt  a  renewed  rising  of 
the  Brigantes  and  the  necessity  of  concentrat- 
ing in  the  north  of  England  seems  to  have 
wiped  out  all  that  Agricola  had  done.  It  is 
not  well  to  be  too  certain.  Agricola  had 
established  a  line  of  forts  between  the  Clyde 
and  the  Forth  "  where  Britain  is  narrowest." 
We  have  no  proof  that  these  were  abandoned, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  so  far  as  inscriptions 
and  coins  are  concerned,  we  have  no  proof 
that  the  north  was  then  held.  What  argues 
most  strongly  against  the  holding  of  the  north 
so  early  is  the  building  and  garrisoning  of 
the  great  wall,  which  was  made  first  of  turf 
and,  many  years  later,  rebuilt  of  stone.  It 
would  seem  certain  that  the  expense  of  men 
and  material  in  the  establishment  of  such  a 
line  would  not  have  been  undertaken  had  a 
contemporary  effort  been  in  progress  to  hold 


THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST  77 

the  much  easier  and  shorter  line  between 
the  Forth  and  the  Clyde.  And  the  reason 
it  was  difficult  or  impossible  to  hold  the 
Scotch  lowlands  was  of  course  the  intervention 
between  them  and  the  last  British  plains  of 
all  that  great  mass  of  hill  and  moorland  which 
vied  with  the  Pennines  themselves  as  a  reserve 
for  rebellion. 

Less  than  twenty  years  after  Hadrian's 
visit,  however,  the  government  of  Britain  in 
the  reign  of  Antoninus  Pius  made  the  second 
attempt  to  hold  the  lowlands.  Agricola's 
whole  line  was  greatly  strengthened.  A  turf 
wall  with  its  great  ditch  ran  from  Carriden  to 
Old  Kilpatrick,  from  tide  to  tide,  and  in  those 
forty  Roman  miles  no  less  than  ten  forts  were 
established,  while  we  must  believe  from  the 
evidence  that  at  the  same  time  the  great  road 
from  the  south  reached  its  final  extension. 

There  were  two  avenues  to  the  north  as  we 
have  seen :  one  through  the  Plain  of  York, 
the  other  through  the  Plain  of  Lancashire. 
That  through  the  Plain  of  York  afforded  the 
easiest  and  the  most  obvious  communication 
for  troops.  Upon  it  was  established  the 
great  military  capital  of  Britain,  York  itself, 
the  seat  of  the  Ninth  Legion.  Throughout 
its  length,  until  within  two  marches  of  the 
wall,   it   passed    through   a    land   of    ample 


78  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

provision.  It  was  concerned  with  no  con- 
siderable obstacles,  crossing  the  rivers  of 
the  Humber  system  by  a  series  of  bridges 
at  Doncaster,  at  Castleford,  at  Aldborough, 
which  required  no  great  effort  in  construction. 
Beyond  the  wall  it  passed  through  Risingham, 
High  Rochester,  Eilden  upon  the  Tweed,  and 
so  across  the  hills  to  the  Forth.  One  great 
engineering  work,  the  crossing  of  the  Tyne 
in  tidal  water  at  Newcastle,  did  not  lie  directly 
upon  this  line  and,  as  I  have  said,  there  was 
no  principal  obstacle  in  the  whole  of  its 
trajectory. 

It  was  otherwise  with  the  western  line  of 
advance.  There,  between  the  Pennines  and 
the  Irish  Sea,  was  present  one  of  the  most 
formidable  strategical  obstacles  in  Britain — 
the  Marshes  of  the  Mersey — and  it  is  of  the 
utmost  interest  to  note  the  way  in  which  the 
work  of  the  Roman  engineers  at  this  point 
determined  point  after  point  in  the  future 
strategical  history  of  Britain.  Between  the 
hill  country  and  the  mouth  of  the  Mersey  the 
line  as  the  crow  flies  is  just  over  forty  miles, 
and  over  the  whole  of  that  forty  miles,  with 
the  exception  of  a  hard  gap  two,  or  at  the 
most  three  miles  wide  at  Stockport  right  up 
against  the  hills,  runs  that  barrier  of  marsh 
which  was  spoken  of  in  the  last  chapter  as 


THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST  79 

the  barrier  of  Lancashire.  It  was  this  barrier 
which  the  Roman  engineers  bridged  after 
a  fashion  which,  from  their  time  onwards  for 
over  a  thousand  years,  and  right  on  to  the 
Civil  Wars,  determined  the  marching  of 
armies  up  the  western  side  of  the  Pennines. 
For  the  first  sixteen  miles  as  the  crow  flies, 
or  somewhat  over  twenty  by  the  channel  of 
the  river,  the  broad  and  tidal  estuary  of 
the  Mersey  formed  a  complete  barrier.  But 
at  the  point  of  Warrington  that  estuary  is 
already  no  more  than  a  river,  though  the 
marshes  on  either  side  are  formidable  to  a 
marching  force.  At  that  point,  Warrington, 
the  Romans  threw  across  a  great  causeway 
whose  line  is  still  marked  by  the  place  name 
Stretton,  characteristic  of  such  made  ways. 
But  though  this  was  the  most  direct  route  up 
to  the  north  from  Chester  it  was  necessary 
to  have  a  communication  also  with  the  Stock- 
port Gap  which  had  been  the  immemorial 
marching  road  of  the  tribes. 

Immediately  next  to  that  gap  and  holding 
it  was  the  fortifiable  and  perhaps  already 
fortified  position  of  Manchester,  in  a  triangle 
between  two  rivers  and,  if  it  were  properly 
garrisoned,  closing  all  attempt  of  an  enemy 
to  pass  through  the  Stockport  Gap  between 
the  marshes  and  the  hills;  or,  again,  if  the 


80  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

Warrington  Causeway  were  in  the  hands  of  an 
enemy,  permitting  an  outflanking  march  to 
proceed  by  the  Stockport  Gap. 

It  was  essential,  then,  to  connect  with  that 
road  which  should  lead  northward  from 
Chester,  not  only  the  passage  of  the  Mersey 
marshes  at  Warrington,  but  some  direct  line 
to  Manchester.  This  line  was  driven  from 
the  junction  at  Northwich.  The  road  north 
from  Chester  first  crosses  the  Weaver  at 
Northwich  (a  salt  depot,  by  the  way)  and  then 
splits  into  two;  one  branch  goes  over  the 
<jauseway  I  have  mentioned  to  Warrington, 
the  other  passes  by  yet  another  causeway 
higher  up,  over  yet  the  same  marshes,  direct 
to  Manchester.  It  has  left  in  a  place  name 
the  record  of  its  passage,  for,  just  as  Stretton 
marks  the  crossing  of  the  Mersey  marshes 
by  the  Warrington  Causeway,  so  does  Stretford 
mark  the  crossing  of  the  same  marshes  by 
the  causeway  leading  to  Manchester.  To 
complete  the  strategical  triangle  there  must 
have  been  a  third  road  from  Warrington  to 
Manchester.  It  has  disappeared,  and  perhaps 
Chatmoss  has  swallowed  it  up. 

From  Warrington  to  Lancaster,  and  so  to 
Overbarrow,  ran  a  road  which,  north  of 
Wigan,  has  mainly  disappeared.  From  Man- 
^chester  by  way  of  Ribchester  to  Overbarrow 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST  81 

also  ran   a  road  which   we  can    still  trace. 

From  this   point,    Overbarrow   near   Kirkby 

Lonsdale,  a  single  road  led  northward.      It 

followed  first  the  valley  of  the  Lune  precisely 

as  does  the  modern  railway,  and  using  the 

same    pass    as    does    that    railway.     It    had 

a  station  at  Lowbarrow  Bridge,   whence  it 

descended    upon    the    Valley    of    the    Eden, 

crossing   Re vens worth  Fell,  and    striking  for 

Kirby  Thore  across  that  river.     Thence,  down 

the  valley  to  Carlisle,  it  can  be  clearly  followed 

so  far  as  Birrens,  across  the  Scotch  border. 

Thence  afterward  it  totally  disappears.     It 

does  not  follow,    as   antiquarians   too   often 

presume,^  that  the  line  was  not  continued  to 

the    Clyde.     The    disappearance    of    Roman 

roads  in  a  puzzling  and  incalculable  fashion 

over  hundreds  of  miles  is  a  matter  I  have  had 

to  deal  with  often  elsewhere,   and  without 

confusing   so    short    an   essay    as    this    with 

numerous  instances,  it  is  enough  to  say  that 

no  negative   evidence   will   ever   convince   a 

close   observer   of  the   Roman   road   system 

that    a   route   which  cries    out  for   military 

communication  had   none  such; — though  all 

evidence  has  disappeared.     But,  at  any  rate, 

^  Birrens  is  the  last  station  marked  in  the  Antonine 
Itinerary,  but  as  the  Antonine  Itinerary  is  no  pretence  to 
a  complete  road  map  of  England,  and  as  we  do  not  know 
its  date^  that  evidence  is  of  very  little  value. 
F 


82  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

we  have  no  proof  of  direct  communication 
with  the  Clyde  by  a  regularly  engineered 
Roman  military  way  over  the  great  moors 
which  separate  the  Scotch  lowlands  from  the 
Solway.  Having  thus  grasped  the  nature  of 
the  approach  to  the  north  and  the  great  part 
it  played  in  the  road  system  of  Roman 
Britain,  we  may  end  with  a  brief  view  of  what 
happened  to  that  attempt  to  hold  the  Scotch 
lowlands  in  a  regular  fashion.  We  have 
followed  that  attempt  as  far  as  the  building 
of  the  forts  and  of  the  wall  from  Forth  to 
Clyde,  just  after  the  year  140.  How  long 
this  second  attempt  to  hold  the  Scotch 
lowlands  continued  we  cannot  tell.  Inscrip- 
tions give  us  at  least  forty  years,  but  do  not 
carry  us  beyond  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 
The  vague  presumptions  of  antiquarians 
would  lead  us  to  believe  that  the  northern 
extension  was  abandoned  by  regular  troops 
(save  in  the  close  neighbourhood  of  the  Tyne 
and  Solway  line)  at  some  time  in  the  last 
twenty  years  of  the  second  century.  In  the 
first  years  of  the  third  there  was  another 
expedition  into  Scotland,  and  from  a  phrase 
used  by  one  historian  we  must  believe  that, 
at  that  moment,  the  line  from  Forth  to  Clyde 
was  still  regarded  as  the  boundary  of  the 
Empire. 


I 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST  83 

The  truth  is,  of  course,  that  the  general 
civilisation  of  Rome  had  already  overflowed 
her  military  boundaries.  Wild  barbarians 
might  raid  a  frontier  district,  but  the  mere  fact 
that  there  was  something  to  raid  proved  that 
the  culture  of  that  district  was  Roman. 
Further  strategical  knowledge  of  Roman 
Britain  we  have  none.  The  north  was,  in 
the  fourth  century,  continually  raided,  and 
as  continually  the  raids  were  repelled.  It  is 
possible  that  the  reconstructed  Valentian 
Province  was  a  military  recovery  of  the 
Scotch  lowlands,  but  we  have  no  proof  of  it. 

The  new  factor  coming  at  the  close  of  the 
period  which  determines  the  strategical  topo- 
graphy of  all  the  Dark  Ages  is  the  approach 
of  enemies  by  sea,  and  not  of  civilised  enemies 
coming  by  sea  across  the  Straits  of  Dover  or 
the  Channel,  but  of  barbarian  enemies  coming 
by  sea  from  the  west  and  from  the  east. 

Unfortunately,  precise  documents  and  all 
remains  and  relics  from  which  inference  could 
be  drawn  illuminate  us  so  little  upon  this 
new  phase  of  British  strategical  topography 
that  we  cannot  pretend  to  deal  with  it  as  we 
have  dealt  with  the  civilisation  of  Britain  by 
Rome. 

Indeed,  the  whole  story  of  the  600  years 
and   more   which   follow   the   breakdown   of 


84  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

Roman  central  government  in  Britain  is, 
upon  the  military  side,  a  story  so  barbaric 
and  so  ill  attested  that  we  can  only  mark  its 
largest  lines.  Still,  those  largest  lines  are 
clear  enough  and  are  determined  by  three 
points. 

First — ^the  rivers  are  still  obstacles  to 
inland  marching,  but  have  become,  in  a 
predominant  fashion,  avenues  of  invasion  into 
the  country. 

Secondly — communications  other  than  the 
rivers  penetrating  the  country  (and  that 
mainly  from  the  east)  are,  in  the  main,  the 
surviving  Roman  roads,  to  which  we  must 
add  a  certain  revival  of  the  old  British 
trackways. 

Thirdly — ^the  points  which  are  the  object- 
ives of  a  barbarian  march,  both  on  account 
of  their  wealth  for  loot  and  of  their  defensive 
capacity,  are  the  points  established  by  the 
long  period  of  Roman  civilisation. 

With  the  great  discussion  upon  the  political 
extent  and  nature  of  the  early  pirate  or 
"  Saxon  '*  raids  into  the  Roman  province  of 
Britain  we  have  here  nothing  to  do.  It  is 
enough  to  know  that,  from  about  the  end 
of  the  third  century  (more  than  a  hundred 
years  before  the  central  authority  of  the 
Empire  abandoned  this  island),  those  auxiliary 


THE  ROMAN  CONQUEST  85 

troops  which  everywhere  tended  to  coarsen 
or  break  up  the  old  scheme  of  civiHsation, 
were  being  brought  into  Britain  from  the 
inland  Rhine  and  from  the  marshes  at  the 
mouth  of  that  great  river.  Meanwhile,  at 
the  same  time  or  a  little  later,  pirate  raids 
were  falling  with  increasing  frequency  upon 
the  eastern  seaboard,  and  these,  generically 
known  as  "  Saxon,"  started  naturally  from 
the  shores  just  outside  Roman  influence  upon 
the  Continent :  districts  which  would  be 
acquainted  with  the  wealth  and  opportunities 
for  loot  afforded  by  a  Roman  province,  which 
had  profited  by  some  tincture  of  Mediterranean 
commerce  and  invention,  but  not  sufficiently 
civilised  to  effect  of  themselves  a  direct 
incorporation  with  the  Roman  system. 

Two  other  continual  attacks  were  being 
made  upon  our  Roman  province,  one  from 
the  west  by  the  Irish  over  the  sea,  one  from 
the  north  across  the  wall.  But  neither  of 
these  two  others  are  of  lasting  effect  or  carry 
with  them  any  lesson  in  strategical  topo- 
graphy unless  it  be  that  the  Caledonian  or 
Pictish  raids  came  to  nothing  because  they 
had  mainly  to  deal  with  the  barren  lands  of 
the  north;  the  Irish  raids  came  to  little 
because  they  had  to  deal  with  rivers  that  did 
not  carry  them  far  inland,  and  often  with  a 


86  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

mountainous  and  sterile  coast.  The  advance 
of  the  eastern  invaders,  on  the  other  hand, 
whether  in  the  form  of  Frankish  or  Frisian 
auxiUaries  and  mercenaries,  or  of  pirates 
from  the  North  Sea,  bore  fruit  because  they 
dealt  with  all  that  segment  of  the  island  of 
Britain  already  well  settled  and  developed 
by  the  Romans,  from  hills  bounding  the 
Yorkshire  Plain  on  the  north-east  to  Dart- 
moor and  Exmoor  on  the  south-west,  with  a 
projecting  tongue  of  good  soil  running  into 
Cheshire  and  Lancashire,  which  is  one  con- 
tinuous habitable  land  full  of  harvest. 

Of  the  lengthy  but  unrecorded  struggle 
connected  with  the  first  pirate  raids,  the  two 
principal  effects  were  the  degradation  of 
civilised  life  and  the  slow  tAnsformation  of 
the  language;  and  in  their  welter  two  main 
chapters  succeed  each  other.  In  the  first,which 
must  have  been  very  brief,  the  pirates  approach 
in  successive  bands  from  the  sea  and  fight  up 
inland,  following  the  rivers.  In  the  second 
you  have  a  sort  of  promiscuous  fighting 
between  the  numerous  kinglets  who  divide 
the  land — some  certainly  native;  some  as 
certainly  pirate;  more  of  whom  we  cannot 
say  what  origin  they  had — and  all  contending 
one  against  the  other  without  pause,  and  with 
no  apparent  result. 


THE  ROMAN   CONQUEST  87 

This  chaos,  which  necessarily  followed  upon 
the  disintegration  of  society,  lasted  for  at 
least  one  hundred  and  fifty  years — till  the 
end  of  the  sixth  century.  We  have  no  record 
of  it  and  no  better  material  than  late  and 
distorted  legends  whereby  to  judge  it. 

The  re-admission  of  Britain  to  some  sort 
of  civilised  life  after  the  first  pirate  raids 
comes  with  the  arrival  of  the  Christian 
missionaries  from  Europe.  Written  record 
reappears,  and  the  origin  of  our  new  history 
is  roughly  coincident  with  the  year  600. 
For  two  centuries  more  the  disorderly  welter 
of  fighting  within  the  island  can  at  least  be 
followed  though  hardly  explained.  There  are 
at  least  records,  though  few  and  unarranged, 
and  we  have  a  few  main  dates  and  places  of 
which  we  can  be  sure.  We  have,  moreover, 
an  historian — Bede.  There  are  no  fresh  pirate 
raids — until  the  second  period  of  these  disasters 
opens  with  the  ninth  century.  The  first 
appearance  of  these  "  Danish "  raiders  is, 
roughly  speaking,  800.^ 

The    "  Danish "    raids    can    no    more    be 

1  The  first  Viking  Fleet  touches  England  in  787— at 
the  earliest,  or  by  another  version,  at  the  latest  793.  The 
first  one  to  touch  Ireland  is  recorded  in  795,  and  though 
England  proper  enjoys  an  immunity  of  over  thirty  years 
after  the  first  raid,  800  is  a  convenient  date  to  take  as  a 
turning  point. 


88  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

reduced  to  a  series  of  strategical  plans  than 
the  "  Saxon  "  ones  of  two  centuries  before. 
But  at  least  we  have  some  record  of  them, 
and  we  particularly  note  how  the  great 
Roman  roads  remained  the  chief  communica- 
tions of  the  island.  Thus,  in  the  first  great 
battle  between  the  pirates  and  the  Christians, 
the  Battle  of  Ockley,  you  have  the  pirates 
coming  up  the  Thames  and  sacking  London 
and  Canterbury  (though  what  the  "  sacking  " 
of  London  may  have  meant  is  doubtful),  and 
then  marching  from  London  Bridge  down  the 
Roman  Stane  Street  to  Ockley  ^  in  Surrey. 
That  was  in  851. 

Twenty-seven  years  later,  after  the  Danes 
had  overrun  the  mass  of  the  Midlands,  their 
decisive  defeat  at  Eddington  in  878,  at  the 
hands  of  Alfred,  was  again  received  within  a 
few  miles  of  the  great  Roman  road  running 
westward  from  Salisbury  to  the  Bristol 
Channel;  indeed,  it  was  upon  that  road, 
just  where  it  leaves  the  great  Ridge  wood, 
that  Alfred  camped  on  the  night  before  the 
battle. 

^  Tlie  site  of  this  battle  has  been  disputed — as  most 
things  have  been — by  the  scepticism  of  our  time.  For 
the  argument  in  favour  of  Church  Oakley  in  Hampshire, 
see  the  Proceedings  of  the  Hampshire  Field  Club  for  1904, 
and  Professor  Oman's  England  before  the  Norman 
Conquest,  page  425. 


THE   ROMAN   CONQUEST  89 

The  second  division  of  the  Danish  Wars, 
in  which  they  were  dynastic  and  had  a  direct 
poHtical  object — the  placing  upon  the  EngHsh 
throne  of  Scandinavian  princes — ^opens  in 
the  year  982.  It  proceeds  again  from  the 
coasts  and  the  rivers  sporadically  enough. 
You  have — at  the  very  beginning — the  ports 
made  objects  of  attack ;  Chester,  London,  and 
Southampton.  Again  no  united  strategical 
plan  of  any  kind  appears,  unless  it  be  found 
in  the  instance  of  Swegen's  invasion  of  1013, 
when,  from  the  Humber  and  York  he  marched 
with  deliberate  intention  against  the  south, 
raiding  the  whole  centre  of  England.  But 
even  here  the  thing  is  little  more  than  ravaging 
a  belt  of  country  with  the  hope  of  striking 
terror  into  those  who  govern  it. 

Even  the  great  struggle  of  Edmund  Ironside 
against  the  invaders  is  strategically  meaning- 
less; a  succession  of  battles,  fought  with 
no  enduring  effect  by  such  forces  as  he 
could  bring  to  action,  now  with  success,  now 
with  ill-success — ^never  with  a  result  or  a 
political  decision.  But  even  in  this  random 
business  the  fighting  and  the  marching 
proceed  by  the  Roman  roads  or  the  older 
tracks,  save  where  the  Danish  fleet  compels 
an  issue  near  the  coast  and  far  from  such 
ways — as  at  Ashindon  in  Essex.     Thus  the 


90  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

battle  of  Sherston  is  just  off  the  Fosse  Way, 
that  of  Otford  on  the  old  road  from  Win- 
chester to  Canterbury,  that  of  Brentford  on 
the  great  Roman  way  from  London  to  the 
south-west. 

Throughout  the  establishment  of  a  Danish 
dynasty,  the  later  expulsion  and  the  return 
of  the  House  of  Wessex  with  Edward  the 
Confessor,  there  is  no  regular  campaign  to 
record. 

It  is  not  until  the  Norman  Conquest,  more 
than  six  centuries  after  the  ruin  of  Roman 
Britain,  that  a  regular  order  returns  to  warfare 
in  this  island,  and  that  its  plan  is  susceptible 
once  more  of  description  and  analysis. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   NORMAN   CONQUEST 

As  a  piece  of  mere  strategical  history  the 
Norman  Conquest  merits  but  a  short  study 
in  the  military  history  of  England ;  for  though 
as  a  political  event  it  ranks  second  only  to 
the  great  turning  points  in  the  story  of  Europe 
— the  Roman  occupation  of  Gaul,  the  con- 
version of  these  islands  to  the  Faith,  the 
expulsion   of   the   Moors    from    Spain — as   a 


92  WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

military  study  it  is  too  simple  and  too  brief 
to  merit  on  its  own  account  any  lengthy 
description.  It  contained  but  one  general 
action,  Hastings,  the  strategy  leading  up  to 
which  was  of  the  most  obvious  kind,  and  the 
strategy  succeeding  which,  though  masterly, 
was  elementary  in  character.  In  the  years 
that  followed  the  hardest  fighting  was  con- 
cerned with  nothing  more  scientific  than  the 
suppression  of  isolated  rebels,  its  great  marches 
were  devastating  raids.  It  gave  rise  to  no 
conspicuous  siege-work,  nor  to  any  interplay 
of  opposing  forces  long  drawn  out. 

Nevertheless  we  must  make  of  the  Conquest 
a  fundamental  study  if  we  are  to  understand 
English  military  topography,  because  it  illus- 
trates at  once  those  three  main  points  in  the 
military  topography  of  England  upon  which 
I  have  insisted  on  a  previous  page,  and  also 
is  the  origin  of  that  feature  in  our  military 
history  which  marks  the  whole  of  its  domestic 
fighting  down  to  the  seventeenth  century  : — 
those  three  main  points  are  the  obstacles  of 
the  Thames,  of  the  Pennines,  and  of  London, 
while  the  feature  which  the  Conquest  originates 
is  the  establishment  at  a  great  number  of 
scattered  points  throughout  the  realm  of 
separate  strongholds — castles — round  which, 
as  checks  to  an  enemy's  advance,  depots  of 


THE  NORMAN  CONQUEST        93 

supply,  bases  for  excursion,  and  refuges  for 
forces  in  the  field,  all  the  subsequent  history  of 
warfare  in  Britain  turns  for  four  hundred  years. 

Some  description  of  the  type  of  society 
which  William  was  attacking  would  be  useful 
to  a  comprehension  of  the  Conquest.  In  so 
short  a  space  as  I  have  at  my  disposal  it  must 
be  enough  to  say  that  it  was  identical  in  all 
its  main  features  with  that  same  Feudal 
society  of  the  Continent  whence  the  Conqueror 
had  drawn  his  forces  and  upon  which  he 
modelled  all  the  exact  legislation  of  his  reign ; 
it  was  identical  with  the  rest  of  Western 
Christendom  in  religion,  morals  and  social 
concepts.  All  Europe  was  then  of  the  same 
stuff;  a  vague,  hardly  conscious  instinct  of 
unity  survived  in  Britain  as  it  survived  in 
Gaul.  But  the  social  fact  on  which  men  were 
most  clear  and  to  which  their  affections,  their 
fears  and  their  daily  habits  were  attached  was 
the  dependence  of  a  number  of  free  men  each 
upon  his  lord,  and  the  whole  host  formed  by 
the  gathering  of  such  lords,  supported  by  the 
agricultural  labour  of  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  who  never  entered  the  field  and  who 
were  not  yet  in  law  technically  free,  though 
centuries  of  Christian  influence  had  long  ago 
destroyed  the  servile  basis  of  that  old  Roman 


94  WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

civilisation  whence  the  eleventh  century- 
society  of  England  and  of  France  had  both 
proceeded. 

On  this  account  we  must  never  look  at  the 
struggle  between  William  the  Invader  and 
the  opponents  whom  he  met  upon  English 
soil  as  a  national  struggle.  In  the  first  shock 
William  at  the  head  of  a  feudal  host  met 
Harold,  the  accredited  and  crowned  King  of 
an  English  feudal  system.  The  two  men 
were  fighting  for  what  each  claimed  as  a 
personal  right.  When,  after  the  first  decisive 
action  the  personal  claims  of  Harold  were 
overthrown  and  he  himself  killed,  William 
had  to  meet  no  national  resistance,  but  only 
occasional  and  sporadic  rebellion,  provoked 
in  one  place  by  the  personal  ambition  of  a 
powerful  feudatory,  in  another  by  the  irrita- 
tion following  upon  administration  in  a  foreign 
speech  and  the  disturbance  of  an  old  settled 
order;  in  a  third  by  the  mere  opportunities 
for  brigandage  which  the  confusion  of  the 
Invasion  caused.  To  this  it  must  further  be 
added  that  the  society  of  England  in  the 
eleventh  century,  though  framed  upon  the 
same  model  and,  as  I  have  said,  of  the  same 
stuff  as  that  of  Gaul  or  of  the  Rhine  Valley 
or  of  Northern  Spain,  was  less  closely  knit  and 
somewhat  less  regular  in  structure :  a  feature 


THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST         95 

which  added  to  the  lack  of  consecutiveness  and 
plan  in  such  chance  resistance  as  the  Conqueror 
had  to  meet  after  the  Battle  of  Hastings. 

These  political  points  have  no  concern  with 
such  a  study  as  this  save  in  so  far  as  they 
affect  the  strategy  of  the  campaign. 

That  strategy,  directed  against  no  cohesive 
opposition  (after  the  fkst  great  battle  had 
been  decided),  had  none  of  the  simplicity  of 
plan  which  we  have  seen  to  mark  the  Roman 
advances  from  the  south  to  the  north  of  the 
island,  for  it  was  not  designed  to  break  down 
in  a  methodical  manner  a  united  resistance. 

The  Campaign  of  the  Conquest  resolves 
itself  into  two  clearly  marked  portions.  The 
first  occupies  the  autumn  of  1066.  In  it  is 
finally  decided  William's  claim  to  the  throne ; 
its  effect  is  his  formal  crowning  at  Westmin- 
ster. This  was  the  political  object  of  the 
invasion.  Once  it  was  successful  the  ultimate 
success  of  all  subsidiary  action  was  assured. 

The  second  portion  of  the  Conquest  consists 
in  his  march  towards  the  extreme  and  some- 
what isolated  south-west,  with  the  reduction 
of  a  rebellion  in  Exeter  :  it  was  not  called  for 
until  two  years  after  the  first  decisive  move- 
ment had  been  made.  It  was  followed  by  a 
march  along  the  great  road  to  the  north 
involving  very  little  fighting  and  doing  little 


96        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

more  than  show  the  King's  presence  in 
Yorkshire  and  along  the  line  of  the  great 
Roman  way  between  that  district  and  London. 
Next  year,  1069,  a  rising  in  the  very  places 
where  the  Conqueror  had  shown  himself  (a 
rising  aided  by  the  Danes)  was  followed  by 
a  renewed  approach  of  the  Conqueror,  his 
complete  subjugation  of  the  northern  strate- 
gical centre  of  which  York  was  the  stronghold, 
and  a  wholesale  wasting  of  the  land  standing 
again  to  the  north  of  this  between  Humber 
and  Tees. 

The  third  of  the  great  fighting  marches  in 
this  second  stage  of  the  Conquest  consisted 
in  a  stroke  to  the  west  across  the  Pennines 
and  the  capture  of  Chester.  With  these 
three  blows,  entirely  successful,  the  one  to 
the  extreme  south-west,  the  second  to  the 
north  along  the  great  strategical  line  east 
of  the  Pennines,  the  third  west  across  the 
Pennines,  to  Chester  and  the  gates  of  the 
country  on  the  north-west,  the  Conquest  was 
completed,  and  no  military  episode  follows 
save  the  envelopment  and  destruction  of  an 
isolated  valley  in  the  Fens. 

I 

The  first  and  decisive  phase  of  the  Conquest 
in  the  south-east  was  as  follows  : — 


THE  NORMAN  CONQUEST         97 

Harold  was  crowned  and  enthroned  at 
Westminster  upon  Twelfth  Day,  January  6, 
1066,  in  the  morning  of  that  day  at  High 
Mass.  William  gathered  a  great  host  of  his 
own  feudatories,  a  lengthy  business  involv- 
ing negotiation  and  persuasion.  Attracted 
by  promises  of  gain  many  of  the  Gaulish 
feudal  chiefs  who  were  independent  of  his 
over-lordship  (including  chance  comers  from 
beyond  the  Alps  and  the  Pyrenees),  built  a 
great  fleet,  which  after  a  first  assembly  on 
the  central  coast  of  the  Norman  duchy  pro- 
ceeded eastward  and  lay  weather-bound  in 
the  estuary  of  the  Somme,  and  against  the 
threat  of  it  Harold  gathered  his  forces  in 
the  south  of  England. 

It  is  possible  that  if  the  shock  had  come 
during  these  preliminary  manoeuvres,  and  if 
William  had  crossed  in  summer,  the  first 
decisive  action  might  have  favoured  Harold. 
But  the  invasion  halted,  and  the  same  wind 
which  kept  it  bound  upon  the  French  coast, 
brought  to  the  north  of  England,  Hardrada, 
with  a  fleet  of  300  galleys.  He  came  to 
aid  (and  it  is  typical  of  feudal  society) 
Harold's  own  exiled  brother  Tostig.  The 
local  force  awaiting  this  northern  invasion 
under  the  two  northern  earls,  brothers, 
Edwin  and  Morkere,  covered  York  upon  the 


^8  WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

south  two  miles  from  the  walls  of  the  city,^ 
Upon  the  20th  of  September  they  were  utterly 
defeated  and  the  Scandinavians  were  in  the 
northern  capital.  But  meanwhile  Harold 
was  marching  north  at  top  speed  to  meet 
this  new  danger.  He  left  the  south  un- 
guarded; he  made  the  Isle  of  Wight  his 
station  of  observation,  but  his  fleet,  which 
had  also  watched  the  southern  shore,  was 
exhausted,  and  it  had  had  to  go  round  into 
London  river  a  fortnight  before  to  refit, 
losing  many  ships  upon  the  way,  for  it  was 
beating  up  against  north-easterly  gales. 

At  this  point  the  reader  should  note  a 
rapidity  of  movement  which  proves  the 
existence  and  maintenance  of  made  ways  and 
the  continuity  of  the  great  Roman  roads  in 
this  island. 

On  Sunday  the  24th  of  September,  Harold 
was  at  Tadcaster  with  his  forces.  The  ad- 
vance had  not,  indeed,  proceeded  all  the  way 
from  the  south  coast,  for  before  it  began 
Harold  had  retired  upon  London,  but  even 
so  the  distance  from  Tadcaster  to  London 
was  a  matter  of  close  on  200  miles  by  the 
great  road  to  the  north,  and  Harold  covered 
that  in  nine  days.     He  entered  York  on  the 

^  The   fight  was  at   Fulford  over   the    river  opposite 
where  the  race-course  stands  to-day. 


THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST         99 

morrow,  Monday  the  25th,  and  at  Stamford 
Bridge  upon  the  same  day,  where  the  main 
eastern  road  crosses  the  Derwent,  seven 
miles  from  the  city,  he  completely  broke 
the  northern  invasion. 

But  that  march  and  that  victory  decided 
history  in  a  very  different  fashion  from  the 
mere  repulse  of  the  Scandinavians.  In  that 
same  week  the  wind  veered  south,  favoured  the 
fleet  of  those  other  invaders  which  was  waiting 
in  the  mouth  of  the  Somme,  blew  it  across  the 
channel,  and  three  days  after  this  fight  at 
Stamford  Bridge,  on  Thursday,  September  the 
28th,  William  landed  at  Pevensey. 

Two  points  must  now  be  seized  by  the 
reader.  The  first  is  a  repetition  of  that 
rapidity  of  travel  which  I  have  already  in- 
sisted upon.  The  second  the  clear  plan  which 
William  had  evidently  made  for  the  decisive 
fighting  in  the  south-east.  The  first  may  be 
briefly  told.  Harold  could  hardly  have  heard 
of  the  landing  until  Monday.  He  managed 
to  be  in  London  (not,  of  course,  with  his 
whole  host,  but  in  person)  upon  the  Friday, 
or  at  the  latest  upon  the  Saturday.  That 
was  good  riding.  Allow  the  longest  limit 
and  it  means  four  full  days  and  part  of 
two  others  in  which  to  cover  200  miles. 
But  excellent  as  the  feat  was,  what  follows 


100        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

is  perhaps  more  remarkable.  The  mass  of 
the  army  (which  was  of  course  on  foot), 
after  that  fine  march  north  of  200  miles 
in  nine  days,  covered  the  same  distance  in 
the  same  time  southward  again,  with  that 
great  fight  of  Stamford  Bridge  in  between. 
The  host  was  actually  marching  ovi  of 
London  upon  Tuesday,  October  11. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  no  army  in  this 
island  has  covered  such  a  distance  in  such 
a  time  since  that  date.  By  the  evening  of 
the  second  day  he  was  in  position  before  the 
Norman  host  and  standing  upon  the  defensive, 
his  forces  drawn  up  upon  the  crest  of  the 
round  hill  called  ever  since  that  time  "  Battle 
Hill " ;  ^  and  this  last  feat  had  been  the 
greatest  of  all,  for  the  army  had  covered 
nearer  sixty  than  fifty  miles  in  those  forty- 
eight  hours,  and  that  over  worse  country  by 
far  than  the  great  northern  road  which  had 
permitted  their  rapid  dash  to  the  south. 
This  splendid  achievement  was,  however,  yet 
another  cause  for  defeat.     The  levies  of  the 


^  I  forbear  to  trouble  the  reader  with  the  word  ''  Senlac. " 
The  place  is  so  called  in  Odericus  Vitalis.  It  is  no  more  a 
Saxon  name  than  Bergerac,  but  is  probably  the  misrender- 
ing  by  a  Gascon  scribe  of  a  local  Sussex  name.  According 
to  some  authorities  this  name  might  be  that  of  ^^  Sautlache," 
a  place  within  the  limits  of  battle  and  one  whose  title  may 
mean  ''the  sandy  stream." 


THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST       101 

northern  shires  could  not  follow  so  rapid 
a  march,  nor  had  those  of  the  west  come  up 
when  the  issue  was  decided. 

The  second  point,  the  clear  plan  which 
William  must  have  laid,  is  evidenced  by  the 
site  for  which  Harold  had  to  make  before 
he  could  come  in  touch  with  the  invader. 

Why  do  we  find  Harold  on  the  evening  of 
that  Friday,  October  the  13th,  thus  stationed 
at  two  hours'  march  from  the  south  coast  ? 
It  was  because  William  had  deliberately 
refused  to  leave  the  immediate  neighbourhood 
of  the  sea.  He  had  brought  his  fleet  on 
to  Hastings  from  Pevensey  and  beached  it. 
He  had  occupied  Hastings,  throwing  up 
earthworks  both  at  Pevensey  and  at  Hast- 
ings to  protect  his  supplies;  nothing  moved 
him  from  his  determination  to  hold  fast  by 
the  sea — neither  the  comparatively  near 
neighbourhood  of  London  nor  the  cruising  in 
the  ofiing  of  Harold's  fleet,  which  had  been 
ordered  to  cut  off  a  retreat  by  sea.  For  more 
than  a  fortnight  he  stood  his  ground,  and  his 
reason  for  doing  so  was  his  determination 
to  fight  a  decisive  battle  within  immediate 
touch  of  his  supplies,  as  far  as  possible  from 
the  bases  of  reinforcement  which  Harold 
could  command,  and  so  situated  that  if  he 
won  it  he  could  immediately  subdue  the  entries 


102        WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

into  the  island  from  his  own  dominions,  and 
if  he  lost  it  he  should  yet  have  an  opportunity 
for  retreat  to  his  ships. 

The  decisive  action  was  immediately  joined ; 
upon  the  morrow,  Saturday,  October  the  14th, 
Harold's  host  was  destroyed.  What  followed 
was  the  prosecution  of  that  clear  plan  which, 
as  I  have  said,  William  certainly  had  framed 
from  the  beginning  of  his  expedition.  Though 
there  was  now  nothing  in  front  of  him  he 
marched  not  upon  London  but  upon  Dover, 
took  the  town  and  castle  and  thus  now  held 
the  main  communications  between  his  ultimate 
base  upon  the  Continent  and  the  land  he 
had  invaded.  This  done,  he  follows  up  by 
the  Roman  road  to  Southwark,  appreciates 
far  too  well  the  nature  of  the  obstacle  of 
London  to  attempt  a  capture  of  so  great  a 
town  with  his  forces  (it  was  far  larger  than 
anything  which  his  soldiers  would  have  had 
to  deal  with  upon  the  Continent,  its  walls 
defended  an  area  quadruple  that  of  con- 
temporary Paris  or  Rouen).  He  contented 
himself  with  burning  the  southern  suburb  and 
then  marched  right  up  the  south  bank  of  the 
Thames,  making  no  attempt  to  cross  at  the 
numerous  crossings  from  Brentford  onward, 
whether  by  ford  or  by  bridge,  but  deliber- 
ately harrying  the  country  to  the  west  of  his 


THE  NORMAN  CONQUEST       103 

way,  far  into  Surrey  and  Berkshire.  His 
motive  was  gradually  to  encircle  and  cut  off 
that  great  strategical  obstacle  and  political 
centre,  London.  When  he  should  have  reduced 
it  by  such  a  strategy  it  would  give  him  not 
only  kingship  but  supplies,  the  chief  group 
of  population  in  the  kingdom  and  the  great 
passage  over  the  Thames,  with  its  control 
of  the  nexus  of  communications  between  the 
north  and  south  of  the  island. 

Not  until  he  had  got  abreast  and  more  than 
abreast  of  London  upon  the  west,  right  up  to 
Wallingford,  did  he  cross  the  river.  Having 
crossed  it  he  made  straight  for  Berkhampstead, 
and  when  he  reached  that  place  he  had  thrown 
round  London  a  ring  of  wasted  land  only 
unenclosed  towards  the  east.  At  Wallingford 
came  his  first  political  success.  He  there 
received  the  submission  of  Stigand,  the 
archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

He  continued  that  strategical  ring  of  de- 
vastation throughout  north-east  Oxfordshire, 
proceeding  apparently  along  the  Icknield  Way 
throughout  central  Bucks  until  he  turned 
through  the  gap  that  now  serves  both  the 
railway  and  the  Grand  Junction  Canal,  and 
came  upon  the  authorities  of  the  kingdom  at 
the  fortified  point  of  Berkhamstead.  He  had 
not  yet  cut  off  London  from  the  great  northern 


104        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

road  or  from  the  east,  but  he  was  easily  in 
striking  distance  of  the  great  northern  road — a 
day's  march  off  and  not  two  hours'  march  from 
the  Wathng  Street.  Within  two  days  London 
would  have  been  isolated  had  he  continued. 
At  Berkhampstead  then,  the  great  earls,  the 
clergy,  and,  most  significant,  a  deputation  of 
the  citizens  of  London  gave  hostages,  swore 
allegiance  and  offered  the  crown. 

It  will  be  seen  from  what  has  been  said 
how  clear,  simple,  and  successful  was  the 
strategy  which  decided  the  campaign  of 
Hastings.  One  might  add  that  after  his 
crowning  upon  the  Christmas  Day  of  that 
year,  William  was  not  without  military  design 
when  he  withdrew  to  Barking  to  hold  his 
winter  court.  He  stood  there  in  command 
of  the  eastern  road,  and  it  is  not  fantastic 
to  suggest  that  this  last  residence  of  his 
before  crossing  to  Normandy,  was  a  completion 
of  the  circle  he  had  thrown  right  round  the 
great  military  obstacle,  communication  and 
base  of  supply  which  London  had  been  for 
so  many  centuries  and  was  to  be  for  so  many 
centuries  more. 

II 

The  strategics  of  the  three  great  blows, 
south-west,  north,  and  north-west  by  which 


THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST       105 

William  destroyed  the  few  sporadic  rebellions 
against  his  now  admitted  claim  to  the  feudal 
kingship  of  the  island  can  be  briefly  told. 
Indeed  the  term  "  strategic  "  is  too  dignified 
for  so  exceedingly  simple  a  matter.  No  true 
armies  marched  or  manoeuvred  against  him, 
no  true  siege  of  any  fortified  place  was 
necessary,  and  wherever  the  Conqueror  went 
(accompanied,  be  it  remembered,  now  by  great 
masses  of  native  troops  as  well  as  by  the 
remains  of  his  continental  levies)  he  was 
immediately  and  absolutely  successful. 

During  an  absence  in  Normandy  which 
ended  with  the  midwinter  of  '67  there  had 
been  sporadic  outbreaks  of  men  outlawed  or 
disappointed.  And  in  the  attempted  anarchy 
foreign  aid  had  been  asked  for  and  in  part 
obtained.  The  feudal  chief  of  Boulogne  had 
helped  an  assault  upon  Dover,  which  had  it 
succeeded  would  have  been  really  serious,  but 
it  was  easily  beaten  off.  Exeter  in  the  ex- 
treme south-west  was  the  first  point  to  which 
the  Conqueror  on  his  return  was  called  to 
march.  The  reason  of  its  discontent  was  a 
peculiar  one  characteristic  of  the  loose  feudal- 
ism of  England  before  the  Conquest. 

Merchants  had  no  objection  at  all  to  paying 
William's  taxes  or  owning  allegiance  to  him 
as  King,  but  they  seem  to  have  desired  the 


106        WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

constitution  of  a  free  city  with  autonomous 
jurisdiction  within  its  walls.  The  novelty 
they  would  not  admit  was  a  garrison.  William 
marched  against  them,  aided  now  by  great 
bodies  of  native  troops,  took  it  within  three 
weeks,  and  with  that  chance  and  not  con- 
siderable encounter  the  whole  of  the  south 
and  south-west  is  quiet. 

The  next  stroke  was  to  the  north.  (It  will 
be  noticed  how  all  these  uncertain  attempts 
were  at  a  distance  from  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment.) Edgar,  the  heir  of  the  House  of 
Wessex,  but  recently  reconciled  with  William 
and  given  a  high  place  at  his  Court,  had  fled. 
A  storm  drove  him  to  Scotland.  The  Scottish 
King  offered  his  aid  to  place  him  upon  the 
throne.  The  Bishop  of  Durham  joined  the 
conspiracy,  the  Norman  garrison  of  the  town 
was  massacred.  Upon  the  news  York  also 
massacred  its  garrison.  William  marched 
northward  at  once,  re-occupied  York  and 
quelled  the  movement.  But  this  was  not 
the  "  blow  towards  the  north  "  to  which  I 
alluded.  That  came  the  next  year.  Durham 
and  Northumberland  William  had  not  visited. 
They  were  held  to  him  by  an  oath  on  the  part 
of  their  chief  men  and  by  nothing  more.  A 
second  insurrection  followed  upon  William's 
departure.     Edgar,  the  heir  to  the  old  throne, 


THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST       107 

once  more  appeared  from  Scotland.  William 
came  back  for  the  second  time.  For  the 
second  time  re-established  his  authority,  but 
for  the  second  time  neglected  to  march  beyond 
Tees.  For  the  second  time  he  left  the  north 
to  attend  to  piratical  attacks  upon  the  south- 
east coast  in  support  of  the  sons  of  Harold, 
but  they  were  defeated  without  the  necessity 
of  his  presence,  and  those  heirs  of  the  dead 
King  fled  to  Ireland  in  the  summer  to  be 
heard  of  no  more. 

Then  came  the  third  outbreak  in  the  north 
aided  by  the  Danish  fleet.  For  the  third 
time  the  Norman  garrison  fell  with  its  castles. 
The  real  danger  to  William  in  this  third  and 
most  serious  insurrection  was  not  the  isolated 
and  doubtful  bands  following  native  feudal 
chiefs,  but  the  Danes.  Their  ships  lay  in  the 
Humber,  their  armed  men  occupied  the  north 
of  Lincolnshire. 

It  was  William's  third  march  north  against 
them  and  the  insurrection  which  they  sup- 
ported, which  I  call  his  second  blow,  for  it 
was  much  more  in  the  nature  of  a  campaign 
than  either  of  the  two  first.  He  proceeded 
leisurely  enough,  garrisoned  Stafford  and 
Nottingham,  waited  for  three  weeks  at  Ponte- 
fract  before  crossing  the  Aire,  by  one  account 
because  the  river  was  swollen,  but  much  more 


108         WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

probably  because  he  was  negotiating  with  the 
Danes.  He  took  York  easily  enough  by 
assault.  Garrisons  were  reinforced,  and  once 
again  he  held  his  Christmas  Court  in  that 
northern  capital  which  was  of  its  nature  the 
strategic  centre  of  the  north.  What  followed 
was  a  military  execution  of  a  terrible  sort, 
but  informed  by  a  very  distinct  military 
purpose.  William  determined  to  put  a  buffer 
between  the  plain  of  York,  which  was  now  his 
northernmost  limit,  and  that  border  country 
with  Scotland  beyond  it  from  which  he  must 
expect,  if  he  did  not  take  due  precaution, 
ceaseless  and  embarrassing  raids  :  for  that 
border  country  was  now  and  remained  for 
centuries  a  disputed  land,  the  lords  of  which, 
under  the  conditions  of  the  day,  could  hardly 
be  held  in  hand  from  the  southern  centres  of 
government.  William  determined  not  only  to 
establish  his  defence  by  the  method  of  de- 
vastation, but  to  establish  it  at  once,  winter 
though  it  was,  and  systematically  all  the 
arable  land  between  the  Yorkshire  Wolds  and 
the  Pennine  s,  from  the  left  bank  of  the  Ouse 
up  to  the  Tees,  from  the  Tees  up  to  the 
Tyne,  he  utterly  wasted. 

The  whole  population  of  Durham  fled  to 
the  islands  off  the  coast,  save  such  as  were  cut 
down  in  their  flight,  and  they  were  thousands. 


THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST       109 

He  burnt  every  steading  and  destroyed  every 
implement  his  hand  could  reach.  The  chiefs 
submitted,  the  greatest  of  them  was  permitted 
a  marriage  into  the  Conqueror's  family,  and 
while  his  men  raided  Northumberland  the 
King  himself  returned  from  the  Tees,  not 
following  the  road  of  the  plains  by  which  he 
had  come,  but  showing  himself  and  his  power, 
in  spite  of  the  desperate  weather,  up  in  the 
Yorkshire  dales,  which  are  the  foothills  of 
the  Peninnes.  This  last  was  a  desperate 
venture  in  which  the  army  was  almost 
destroyed  by  the  climate,  and  William  him- 
self once  lost.  It  might  have  wiped  out,  had 
it  finally  gone  ill,  the  effects  of  the  last  three 
years,  but  the  Norman  determination  con- 
quered. He  came  back  to  York  with  a  loss 
of  nearly  all  his  horses  but  with  an  armed 
force  still  surrounding  him. 

There  was  a  third  thing  to  be  done.  He  had 
not  shown  himself  in  the  western  plain  which 
lay  beyond  the  Pennine s.  There  on  the  Welsh 
marches  was  a  perpetual  danger  from  the 
alliance  of  the  insurgents  with  the  moun- 
taineers, and  from  the  proximity  of  the  sea, 
with  its  opportunities  for  Irish  and  for 
Scandinavian  fleets. 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  spite  of  the  late 
and  terribly  severe  season  he  marched  not 


110        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

round  the  hills  but  across  them.  His  blow 
was  the  more  sudden  and  the  more  effective. 
He  started  in  the  beginning  of  March  and, 
though  we  do  not  know  his  route,  we  must 
presume  that  it  lay  along  the  old  Roman  road 
that  uses  the  Skipton  Gap,  unless  he  went  to 
the  south  by  that  other  Roman  crossing  which 
connected  Glossop  with  the  plain  of  the  Don. 
At  any  rate,  the  forcing  of  the  high  hills  in 
such  weather  was  more  than  the  foreign  con- 
tingents could  bear,  though  to  the  native 
troops  it  was  more  endurable.  His  continental 
soldiers  grumbled  and  attempted  mutiny.  His 
personal  example  of  sacrifice  and  endurance 
quelled  this  outbreak,  as  did  that  of  Napoleon 
in  the  Guadarrama  centuries  later  in  weather 
much  the  same.  He  took  Chester,  fortified 
it,  receiving  the  submission  of  Eadric,  who  had 
led  a  whole  series  of  local  raids ;  marched  down 
to  Salisbury  and  there  disbanded  the  army. 
The  Conquest  was  complete. 

Ill 

The  third  strategical  feature  of  the  Con- 
quest is  one  of  permanent  moment  to  the 
future  history  of  England.  Wherever  William 
established  a  garrison  and  occupied  a  town 
of  any  size  or  a  strategic  position  of  any  value, 
he  built  a  castle. 


THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST       111 

What  permanent  fortifications  had  existed 
previous  to  the  Conquest,  save  in  the  shape 
of  town  walls,  it  is  not  easy  to  determine,  but 
certainly  they  were  at  once  ruder  and  far  less 
numerous  than  those  which  the  Conquest 
and  the  generation  following  it  deliberately 
established. 

It  would  be  impossible  within  the  compass 
of  this  to  make  even  an  incomplete  list  of  the 
great  works  of  this  sort  which  marked  the 
period,  but  it  is  of  the  first  importance,  if 
we  are  to  understand  the  military  history  of 
the  succeeding  five  centuries  in  the  island,  to 
grasp  the  nature  of  this  revolution. 

We  have  seen  what  the  character  in  strate- 
gics of  a  stronghold  is.  It  is  a  refuge,  a  base, 
a  depot,  and  an  obstacle  all  at  once.  When  a 
country  is  covered  with  such  points  the  great 
lines  of  strategy  tend  to  disappear  and  warfare 
must  be  largely  composed  of  the  attempted 
reduction  by  one  body  to  the  struggle  of  such 
strongholds  as  may  be  held  by  the  other. 
An  army  cannot  pass  in  safety  between 
neighbouring  fortified  castles  if  they  are 
upon  a  scale  sufficient  to  maintain  a  consider- 
able force.  Even,  therefore,  if  the  history 
of  the  succeeding  centuries  had  contained 
examples  of  regular  invasions,  the  planting 
all  up  and  down  the  island  of  these  great  works 


112         WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

would  have  profoundly  modified  the  story  of 
those  invasions  and  we  should  never  have 
had  the  simple  lines  of  action  which  mark  the 
Roman  and  the  Norman  subjugation  of  the 
land.  Supposing,  for  instance,  that  William, 
after  his  reduction  of  Dover  immediately 
following  upon  the  Battle  of  Hastings,  had 
found  upon  his  line  of  march  garrisoned 
points  at  Rochester  and  at  Windsor,  to  the 
south  of  him  at  Reigate  and  at  Guildford,  to 
the  west  of  him  at  Oxford,  and  in  front  of 
him  at  Towcester  and  at  St.  Albans  (as  a 
later  invader  would  have  found  them),  and 
supposing  these  garrisoned  points  had  had 
their  garrisons  well  munitioned  with  supplies 
within  their  defences,  that  sweeping  circular 
march  of  his  which  isolated  London  would 
never  have  been  possible. 

I  say  that  even  regular  invasions  would 
have  been  disturbed  and  modified  by  so 
great  a  system  of  internal  fortification. 

But,  as  a  fact,  the  military  history  of 
England  in  the  next  four  or  five  hundred 
years  is  not  one  of  invasion,  but  of  civil  war, 
and  in  conflicts  of  this  sort  it  is  obvious  that 
the  existence  of  a  vast  number  of  defended 
and  garrisoned  points  scattered  all  over  the 
territory  of  conflict  must  determine  the 
nature  of  that  conflict  entirely. 


THE  NORMAN  CONQUEST       113 

A  vague  and  general  strategy  is  to  be 
extracted  from  each  phase  of  all  history,  as 
we  shall  see.  There  was  something  of  it 
even  in  the  Barons'  Wars,  and  something  of 
it  in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  but  the  main 
feature  of  all  the  fighting  from  the  Conquest 
onwards  is  the  determination  of  its  lines 
and  results  by  the  system  of  castles  which 
the  Conqueror  and  his  inmaediate  successors 
established. 

The  work  was  gigantic.  Many  of  these 
fortresses  were  upon  such  a  scale  that  they 
could  maintain  a  considerable  garrison  for 
months  and  defy  all  operations  save  that  of 
a  regular  siege.  Even  the  lesser  works  could 
check  the  advance  of  an  enemy  for  many  days, 
and  there  was  hardly  a  market  town  with  its 
supplies  of  provision  and  missiles,  hardly  an 
important  river  crossing  or  pass  over  difficult 
hills  that  was  not  guarded  with  permanent 
works  of  stone,  duly  surrounded  by  one,  two,  or 
even  three  walls,  and  ditches,  carefully  supplied 
at  any  expense  with  water,  and  provided  with 
such  curtains  of  resistance  as  rendered  it 
possible  to  compare  that  vast  undertaking 
with  the  system  of  defended  towns  which 
cover  the  frontiers  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
or  even  the  system  of  entrenched  camps  which 
are  the  mark  of  European  defence  to-day. 


114        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

I  have  said  above  (and  illustrated  my 
remark  with  a  footnote)  that  it  would  be 
impossible  within  my  limits  here  to  make 
even  an  incomplete  list  of  the  known  works 
of  the  period,  but  a  few  examples  will  illustrate 
what  I  mean.  Consider  the  whole  of  the 
south  coast.  There  was  not  a  gap  through 
which  a  landing  force  could  proceed  unless 
the  castles  were  friendly,  unoccupied,  or 
reduced.  From  Dover  to  Rye  and  Winchel- 
sea,  from  Rye  and  Winchelsea  to  Hastings, 
thence  to  Pevensey,  to  Lewes,  to  Bramber, 
to  Arundel,  to  Chichester,  to  Porchester,  to 
Southampton  run  a  continual  string,  no  two 
of  which  are  more  than  a  day's  march  one 
from  the  other.  They  are  backed  with 
subsidiary  works  at  Winchester,  at  Salisbury, 
at  Farnham,  at  Guildford,  at  Reigate,  at 
Rochester,  while  immediately  behind  their 
line  you  have  the  later  works  of  Petworth, 
Amberley,  Knepp,  Hurstmonceaux,  Bodiam, 
Canterbury. 

We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  these  places 
now  as  ruins  or  as  the  seats  of  chance  wealthy 
men,  and  to  think  of  them  in  the  past  as 
the  private  refuge  of  individual  commanders 
who  held  them  with  a  sort  of  possession. 
But  in  their  original  intention  they  were 
within  the  domain  of  government,  they  formed 


THE  NORMAN  CONQUEST       115 

the  military  scheme  upon  which  government 
depended,  they  were  garrisoned  for  the  King 
under  leaders  of  his  own  appointment,  revoc- 
able, and  mere  offices  of  state. 

I  wish  that  my  limits  would  allow  me  to 
insist  upon  this  capital  matter  in  the  military 
story  of  England.  To  show  the  line  of  the 
Thames  held  by  the  Tower,  by  Windsor, 
by  Reading,  by  Wallingford,  by  Oxford; 
the  Welsh  marches  contained  by  Newport, 
by  Monmouth,  by  Hereford,  by  Ludlow,  by 
Shrewsbury  and  by  Chester;  the  gap  into 
the  Vale  Royal  by  Beeston ;  the  Midlands  by 
the  complex  of  Northampton,  Bedford,  Tow- 
cester,  Huntingdon,  Warwick,  Nottingham, 
Leicester  and  twenty  others.  The  great  road 
to  the  north  was  blocked  successively  from 
Hertford  march  after  march  at  Stanford,  at 
Grantham,  at  Newark,  at  Lincoln,  at  Gains- 
borough, at  Doncaster,  at  Pontefract  and  at 
York.  Every  port  was  defended,  every 
obstacle  of  water  held  at  its  passage.  My 
limits  do  not  permit  me  this,  but  I  have  said 
enough  to  emphasise  what  this  enormous 
business  of  castle  building  did,  and  how  it 
formed  a  framework  for  five  centuries  of 
warfare. 


116        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

CHAPTER  IV 

medievaji  warfare — ^i 
The   Campaign   of  Magna   Charta 

All  the  fighting  in  England  between  the 
Conquest  and  the  Civil  Wars  of  the  Common- 
wealth was  of  a  domestic  character  with  the 
exception  of  the  expeditions  against  Scotland 
and  Wales,  to  which  I  shall  refer  briefly  at 
the  end  of  this  book. 

While  one  might  distinguish  at  least  half 
a  hundred  chapters  in  the  course  of  these  six 
centuries  (1066-1651),  five  separate  and  clearly 
defined  campaigns,  or  series  of  campaigns, 
especially  mark  the  period.  These  are  the 
civil  war  under  Stephen  in  the  middle  of 
the  twelfth  century;  the  insurrection  of  the 
Barons  against  John  at  the  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth,  which  may  be  called  the  Campaign 
of  Magna  Charta;  the  insurrection  of  the 
Barons  against  Henry  III  in  the  middle  of 
the  same  century;  the  Wars  of  the  Roses; 
and,  lastly,  the  Civil  Wars  themselves  in  the 
seventeenth  century. 

Of  these  five  salient  episodes  in  the  domestic 
warfare  of  England  the  first  four  fell  in 
the  Middle  Ages.  I  propose  to  deal,  there- 
fore, with  everything  before  the  struggle  of 


Bart/tolomew,£din' 


118        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

Charles  I  against  Cromwell  under  the  title  of 
Medieval  Warfare. 

As  all  that  warfare  was  between  parties  both 
present  in  the  island,  and  not  between  natives 
and  foreign  invaders,  it  suffers  from  the  eon- 
fusion  necessary  to  all  civil  struggles,  but 
particularly  accentuated  in  the  case  of  our 
history  by  that  factor  of  the  numerous  castles 
upon  which  I  insisted  in  the  last  chapter. 

All  four  medieval  episodes — ^that  of  Stephen, 
of  John,  of  Henry  III  and  of  the  Roses  are, 
nevertheless,  susceptible  of  a  certain  arrange- 
ment, betray  a  certain  strategical  plan,  and 
are  capable  of  logical  discussion  in  a  survey  of 
military  history,  with  the  exception  of  the 
first 

The  first  episode,  I  say,  the  struggle  between 
Stephen  and  Matilda,  it  is  impossible  to  submit 
to  any  arrangement.  It  was  a  mere  anarchy 
of  powerful  feudal  chiefs,  each  in  actual 
(though  not  legal)  ownership  of  certain 
strongholds  and  in  legal  as  well  as  actual 
ownership  of  vast  military  resources,  each 
warring  against  his  neighbour  in  pairs,  or  in 
small  groups,  and  all  changing  and  re-changing 
sides  with  bewildering  lack  of  consecution. 
One  can  no  more  establish  a  logical  sequence 
in  such  scrimmage  than  one  could  establish 
it  in  a  hand-to-hand  fight  at  a  public  meeting. 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  119 

It  is  best,  therefore,  for  our  purpose,  to  omit 
any  attempt  to  analyse  the  confusion  of 
Stephen's  reign,  and  to  proceed  at  once  to 
the  more  regular  and  far  more  interesting 
conflict  between  John  and  his  Barons  which 
I  have  called  the  Campaign  of  Magna  Charta. 
Here  a  great  soldier  was  pitted  against  good 
metal,  and  his  plans  were  recognisable  and 
clear. 

The  pivot  of  the  Campaign  of  Magna  Charta 
is  the  great  castle  of  Windsor  :  and  the  castle 
of  Windsor  as  (a)  the  terminal  of  the  Thames 
line  of  works,  (b)  the  chief  royal  garrison 
within  striking  distance  of  London. 

The  hill  of  Windsor  had  suffered  Roman 
occupation,  whether  fortified  or  not  we 
cannot  tell.  During  the  whole  of  the  Dark 
Ages,  with  their  absence  of  central  govern- 
ment and  their  looseness  of  organisation,  its 
admirable  opportunities  had  been  neglected. 
It  was  left  for  the  Conqueror  to  seize  those 
opportunities,  to  effect  a  purchase  (or  rather 
an  exchange)  of  the  site  with  the  monks  of 
Westminster,  its  former  owners,  and  to 
establish  a  great  fortified  position  upon  the 
hill. 

Let  us  see  what  those  advantages  were. 
The  great  road  from  London  to  Winchester 
passed   over   the   Thames   at   Staines.     The 


120        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

Thames  was  itself  throughout  the  Middle  Ages 
not  only  an  obstacle  but  a  highway.  Staines 
was,  therefore,  a  nodal  point  of  capital  stra- 
tegic importance.  But  Staines  had  not  in  its 
immediate  neighbourhood  a  position  defensible 
after  the  necessities  of  medieval  defence.^ 
The  nearest  such  position  was  the  hill  of 
Windsor,  and  the  garrison  of  Windsor  was 
little  more  than  an  hour's  march  from  the 
passage  of  the  river  at  Staines.  It  therefore 
cut  that  passage. 

The  road  direct  to  the  west  crossed  the 
Thames  opposite  Maidenhead  and  ran  through 
Reading.  The  garrison  at  Windsor  were 
within  two  hours'  march  of  that  crossing, 
within  half  an  hour's  of  the  nearest  point  on 
the  western  road. 

For  defence  upon  the  north  and  east  the 
position  had  a  precipitous  bank.  The  ap- 
proach from  the  south  was  through  a  district 
devoid  for  nearly  a  whole  day's  march  of 
supplies.  Again,  any  attempt  to  approach 
London  from  the  west,  south  of  the  Chilterns, 

^  By  which  I  mean  this  :  an  abrupt  acclivity,  or  patch 
isolated  by  marsh,  yet  with  an  approach.  In  "the  Roman 
days,  with  a  disciplined  infantry,  one  could  defend  a  mere 
ridge  upon  the  flat.  To-day,  with  long-range  weapons, 
the  immediate  approaches  to  a  defence  count  less.  In  the 
Middle  Ages  the  type  of  assault  demanded  for  defence  the 
obstacles  of  acclivity,  of  marsh,  or  of  water,  and  the 
presence  of  one  narrow  approach,  natural  or  artificial. 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  121 

was  blocked  by  Windsor.  Finally,  Windsor 
was  one  long  but  quite  possible  day's  march 
from  London,  and  it  was  the  end  of  the  line 
that  held  the  lower  river.  It  formed  with  a 
second  day's  march  to  Reading,  a  third  day's 
march  to  IVallingford,  a  fourth's  from  Walling- 
ford  to  Oxford,  the  terminal  of  a  chain  of 
castles  which  between  them  blocked  the  whole 
line  of  the  Thames  between  London  and  its 
upper  branches.  The  Campaign  of  Magna 
Charta  divides  itself  into  two  phases. 

In  the  first  the  Barons,  manoeuvring  against 
their  king,  turn  the  scale  against  him  by 
receiving  in  aid  that  great  strategical  factor 
of  London,  which  we  have  seen  by  its  size, 
wealth  and  position  so  largely  to  determine 
the  course  of  English  warfare.  They  obtain 
John's  consent  to  the  Charter. 

In  the  second — after  an  interval  of  some 
months — foreign  aid  is  called  in  by  the  Barons, 
but  John,  by  his  superior  military  capacity, 
is  already  victorious  when  his  chance  of 
complete  success  is  lost  in  death. 

As  to  the  first,  what  we  have  need  to  note 
most  carefully  is  the  all -importance  of  the 
four  Thames  castles  for  the  king  and  the  all- 
importance  of  London  for  the  Barons. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1214  that  John's 
last     attempt    to    retrieve    his    continental 


122        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

disasters  which,  more  than  any  oppression  of 
his  at  home,  had  given  the  great  nobles  their 
cause  of  offence,  was  crushed  at  the  battle  of 
Bouvines. 

In  the  following  January,  a  conspiracy 
having  already  been  formed  against  his  rule 
and  an  oath  against  him  taken  in  particular  by 
the  nobles  of  the  north,  John  came  to  a  truce 
with  the  conspirators  and  fixed  Low  Sunday, 
the  26th  of  April,  as  the  date  upon  which  the 
truce  should  end. 

On  the  Saturday  before  Palm  Sunday, 
that  is,  on  the  11th  of  April,  1215,  the  nobles 
gathered  a  force  numbering  anything  from 
2000  to  3000  men-at-arms — ^which  would 
mean  from  10,000  to  12,000  all  told  in  their 
command.  Their  object  was  to  win  the 
independence  of  the  great  feudatories  from 
the  central  government,  and  to  decide  for 
the  moment  in  their  favour  the  perpetual 
medieval  struggle  between  oligarchy  and  a 
popular  monarchy.  Though  that  success 
might  mean  the  calling  in  of  foreign  aid  and 
even  a  submission  to  a  new  dynasty,  they 
would  pay  the  price. 

When  they  had  mobilised  this  force  they 
began  to  converge  it  upon  Brackley ;  their 
motive  for  choosing  this  point  I  will  set  out 
in  a  moment. 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  123 

With  what  total  forces  John  could  meet 
this  menace  we  cannot  tell.  But  they  were 
excellently  trained  and  well-paid  professional 
soldiers,  largely  of  continental  origin,  and 
distributed  as  garrisons  in  the  great  castles 
upon  which  he  depended  during  the  coming 
struggle.  Particularly  did  the  King  amply 
furnish  with  provisions  and  men  the  four 
great  castles  which  held  the  line  of  the  Thames, 
though  many  other  garrisons,  as  we  shall  see, 
held  other  isolated  points,  and  in  particular 
must  be  noticed  Northampton  and  Bedford. 
Of  those  castles  upon  the  line  of  the  Thames 
the  King  himself  held  Oxford. 

Let  us  begin  by  contrasting  the  two  opposing 
strategical  positions  at  the  beginning  of  the 
struggle. 

What  was  the  importance  of  Brackley  ? 

Its  importance  lay  in  its  command  of 
a  whole  group  of  roads  and  in  the  power  of  a 
force  situated  there  to  strike  at  any  one  of  a 
number  of  fortified  sites  still  in  the  hands  of 
the  Cro^vn.  Brackley  was  within  an  hour's 
march  of  the  Portway,  another  hour's  of  the 
great  Roman  road  from  Dorchester  to  the 
Watling  Street,  not  a  day's  march  from  the 
Akeman  Street,  and  within  striking  distance, 
though  a  full  day's  march  away,  of  the  Fosse 
Way;   and  marching  down  from  it  one  could 


124        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

intercept  any  attack  on  London  from  the  west. 
It  was  but  a  day's  march  from  Oxford  itself 
on  the  south,  from  the  royal  stronghold  of 
Northampton  on  the  north  and  east :    which 


( Narthamtiton 


Akeman  Street 


( 


Oxford 

I 

Dorchester 


mA^  S. 


--□  Bedford 

y  Ma/  Sd 


vj,  V\ 


Reading 


Windsor 


"SL,  London 


f^Sta/m\ 


^    t^drch  of  the  Barons  from 

flt)ril27'^toJunel^"-l2l5 

taken,  its  captors  would  command  the  northern 
approaches  on  London. 

Brackley,  in  a  word,  was  suited  in  every 
way  to  be,  not  only  a  shield  for  London,  but, 
from  its  situation  within  a  net  of  roads,  at 
once  the  centre  upon  which  a  suitable  force 
could  converge,   and  a  starting  point  from 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  125 

which  it  could  threaten  several  of  the  enemy's 
castles  while  it  still  covered  any  attempts  of 
that  enemy  to  menace  the  capital. 

It  was  upon  the  Monday,  the  27th  of  April, 
that  the  Barons  assembled  at  Brackley 
opened  their  first  negotiations  with  the  King 
who,  from  Oxford,  refused  their  demands. 

The  first  military  action  of  the  rebels  was 
to  march  from  Brackley  upon  Northampton, 
one  full  day's  march  to  the  north  and  east. 

Their  object  in  this  sudden  movement  was 
to  begin  with  the  capture  of  the  garrison  of 
Northampton,  the  paralysing  of  one  after 
another  of  the  King's  isolated  forces,  and  in 
particular  to  hold  the  approaches  on  London 
from  the  north.  As  for  the  line  of  the  Thames, 
they  would  not  attempt  it  because  it  was  too 
strong  for  them. 

The  castle  of  Northampton  resisted  for  two 
weeks.  Its  resistance  is  characteristic  of  all 
medieval  warfare  in  this  country  and  of  the 
way  in  which  these  defensible  posts  decided 
the  main  issues  of  combat. 

Despairing  of  reducing  it  the  Barons,  still 
keeping  in  mind  the  necessity  of  covering 
London,  which  was  their  principal  political 
support  and  would  prove  an  invaluable  basis  of 
recruitment  and  supply,  marched  on  Bedford. 
That  post  was  yielded  to  them  by  treason. 


126        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

Hardly  were  they  within  its  walls  when, 
upon  Saturday  the  23rd  of  May,  they  received 
an  urgent  summons  from  the  leading  citizens 
of  London,  who  may  have  feared,  from  the 
distance  at  which  the  Barons'  army  now  found 
itself,  an  advance  upon  London  by  the  King 
from  the  west. 

That  advance  had  not  as  a  fact  taken  place. 
The  characteristic  position  of  London  through- 
out the  whole  of  this  struggle  should  be  noted 
as  much  as  that  of  the  castles.  It  was  too 
hard  a  nut  for  any  medieval  soldier  to  crack — 
even  a  Plantagenet — and  none  ever  cracked  it. 

Upon  receiving  this  summons  the  feudal 
cavalry  of  the  Barons  made  a  single  astonish- 
ing march.  They  struck  east  for  the  Ermine 
Street  on  the  Saturday  morning,  marched 
down  it  all  that  Saturday  and  all  the  following 
night,  and  entered  the  city  upon  the  Sunday 
morning,  May  24th,  having  covered  in  one 
ride  well  over  fifty  miles.  What  that  must 
have  cost  in  the  exhaustion  of  the  horses, 
how  their  footmen  straggled  and  tailed  in, 
we  can  guess,  though  we  have  no  record ;  but 
London  could  re-supply  and  re-mount  a  very 
much  larger  force,  and  though  the  Tower 
was  still  held  by  a  garrison  of  John's,  it  is 
again  characteristic  of  the  military  position 
of  London  in  the  Middle  Ages  that  the  garrison 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  127 

was  shut  up  behind  its  defences  and  would 
attempt  nothing  against  the  town  which  had 
now  definitely  joined  the  rebels. 

It  was  the  active  defection  of  London  (the 
sympathy  of  whose  great  merchants  was 
already  known  to  be  strongly  against  the 
Crown)  that  put  John  at  this  early  stage  in 
the  campaign  in  a  position  so  inferior  to  his 
enemies  as  to  make  it  necessary  for  him  to 
treat. 

Of  the  garrisons  along  the  Thames  he  left 
Oxford  for  Windsor,  and  thence  upon  the 
8th  of  June  sent  a  dispatch  to  the  Barons  in 
London  asking  for  a  parley.  They  marched 
out,  fully  armed,  along  the  Roman  road  to 
Staines;  and  in  a  field  immediately  beyond 
the  crossing  of  the  river  (according  to  the  best 
judgment,  for  the  site  is  not  certainly  fixed), 
Magna  Charta  was  presented  and  assented 
to — but  what  followed  was  a  recovery  of  his 
military  position  by  John  and  a  piece  of  fight- 
ing upon  his  part  so  well  planned  and  so 
successful,  that  nothing  but  the  accident  of 
his  death  prevented  its  final  triumph. 

In  the  first  place  the  king  appealed  to  Rome 
against  the  promise  he  had  given  to  those 
wealthy  rebels,  and  he  appealed  upon  the  plea 
that  it  was  no  true  contract  because  it  had 


128        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

been  gained  by  force,  and  meanwhile  he 
temporised  with  the  aristocracy  and  the  great 
London  merchants  who  had  risen  against  him, 
pretending  that  he  would  soon  execute  his 
side  of  the  treaty  and  ever  postponing  that 
duty. 

In  such  a  deadlock  passed  the  summer  of 
1215.  He  set  to  work  methodically  to  recover 
the  whole  of  his  military  position.  He  sent 
to  the  Continent  for  well-trained  mercenaries 
and  received  them.  He  recaptured  Rochester 
Castle  which  he  had  given  over  to  the  aristo- 
cracy as  a  hostage.  He  garrisoned  castle 
after  castle  all  up  and  down  England  with 
the  hired  men  who  kept  coming  to  him  through 
the  ports  which  he  controlled — and  especially 
Dover  with  its  castle — and,  had  he  been  left 
to  struggle  against  his  Barons,  each  without 
allies,  he  would,  by  this  policy  of  garrisoning 
point  after  point  all  over  the  country,  have 
at  last  contained  the  rebellion  in  a  sort  of  net 
in  which  it  would  have  been  enveloped  and 
destroyed  piecemeal. 

In  their  desperation  the  rebels  were  willing 
to  alienate  the  northern  counties  of  England 
to  the  Scotch  Crown.  John  met  that  threat 
with  all  the  energy  of  the  Plantagenets.  He 
ravaged  the  north  as  his  grandmother's  grand- 
father had  ravaged  it.     He  set  fire  with  his 


MEDIEVAL    WARFARE  129 

own  hands,  in  the  morning,  to  whatever 
steading  he  had  billeted  himself  upon  the 
night  before,  and  he  pushed  up  into  the 
border  with  a  thoroughness  that  even  William 
the  Conqueror  had  not  shown.  His  advanced 
bodies  almost  reached  the  gates  of  Edinburgh. 
They  burnt  Berwick,  they  burnt  Haddington, 
and  they  burnt  Dunbar.  In  all  the  north 
two  castles  alone  remained  in  the  hands  of 
the  rebellion  when  this  cruel  and  terrible, 
but  militarily  most  effective,  task  was  accom- 
plished. But  John's  immediate  success  had 
been  met  by  a  counterweight :  his  adversaries 
had  called  in  Louis,  the  heir  apparent  to  the 
French  throne,  and  the  father  of  him  that 
was  afterwards  the  Saint,  and  had  offered  him 
the  crown  of  England.  Louis  had  accepted 
it.  The  French  invaders  began  to  pour  in 
with  the  end  of  the  year  1215  and  in  the 
January  and  February  of  the  next  year. 
Louis  himself  landed  upon  the  21st  of  May, 
1216. 

It  is  from  this  point  and  during  the  five 
months  following  that  you  may  seize  the 
capacity  of  John  as  a  general.  How  much  he 
depended  upon  the  national  irritation  against 
the  proposal  of  the  Barons  to  place  a  new 
dynasty  upon  the  throne,   and  against  the 


180        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

much  more  lively  hatred  of  foreign  nobles 
following  that  invasion,  it  will  be  difficult  for 
a  modern  critic  to  determine.  The  whole  of 
that  society  was,  in  its  government,  French- 

^UJ^^  Lincoln 


^WorcesTsr 


->     Barons  and  Louis, 

■^    John's  rr\»nh  cutting  off  London  from  Iha  North  %relirying  Uncotn 


speaking  and  of  a  French  culture.  But 
undoubtedly  the  mass  of  men  that  were  born 
within  the  island  of  England,  whether  of  the 
French-speaking  nobility  or  of  the  now 
English-speaking  peasants  (for  you  may  almost 
call  their  language  English),  had  begun,  by 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  131 

this  summer  of  the  year  1216,  to  rally  round 
the  traditional  throne  of  the  nation  and  the 
Plantagenet  claim  which  that  nation  admitted. 
At  any  rate,  whatever  we  think  of  the 
popular  position,  the  campaign  was  masterly 
well  fought  by  John.  The  reader  must  con- 
centrate his  attention  upon  two  points: 
Windsor,  commanding  all  the  western  approach 
to  London,  and  the  terminal,  as  we  have  seen, 
of  the  Thames  line  of  strongholds ;  and  Dover, 
whose  castle  held  the  immediate  line  of  supply 
from  the  Continent,  whether  from  friend  or 
foe.  It  was  John's  garrisoning  of  these  which 
permitted  him  to  come  so  near  to  a  final 
success,  to  provide  by  his  efforts  for  the 
continued  rule  of  the  Plantagenets  in  England, 
and,  though  that  was  not  consciously  his 
purpose,  for  the  separation  in  history  of  the 
French  and  English  crowns :  a  matter  of 
vast  import  to  Europe.  He  was  a  great 
soldier. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  business  one  might 
have  thought  John's  position  hopeless,  con- 
sidering that  the  Barons  had  now  the  rein- 
forcement of  an  unlimited  supply  from 
France,  and  behind  that  reinforcement  the 
powers  of  the  strongest  government  in  western 
Europe.  And,  as  a  fact,  John  was  compelled 
to  retire  and  to  retire  precipitately  before  the 


132        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

advance  of  Prince  Louis,  the  ardent  support 
which  the  merchants  of  London  gave  to  the 
foreign  invader,  and  the  fierce  determination 
of  the  rebels. 

Prince  Louis  marched  right  down  the  old 
road  (which,  since  the  murder  of  St.  Thomas 
of  Canterbury,  had  become  the  "  Pilgrims' 
Road")  from  Canterbury  to  Winchester.  He 
landed  at  Stonar,  just  below  Sandwich.^  He 
took  the  castles  of  Reigate,  of  Guildford,  of 
Farnham.  John  may  have  meant  to  stand 
at  Winchester,  but  seems  not  to  have  had 
the  forces  for  resistance  there,  seeing  that  all 
his  best  troops  were  shut  up  in  the  many 
castles  which  he  had  garrisoned. 

It  was  on  the  14th  of  June  that  the  three 
weeks'  victorious  march  of  the  French  Pre- 
tender ended,  and  that  Winchester,  with 
all  its  tradition  of  English  sanctity  and 
government,  surrendered. 

With  that  surrender  came  the  defection 
of  such  of  the  stronger  nobility  as  had  still 
supported  his  cause.  And,  what  was  worse, 
the  chief  of  the  western  strongholds  in  turn 
abandoned  the  cause  of  John  without  a  blow. 
The  castle  of  Marlborough  was  handed  over 

1  Dr.  Stubbs  calls  it  Stonar,  a  small  error  but  very 
irritating  when  it  comes  to  indexing,  particularly  as 
nearly  every  other  authority  calls  it  Sandwich. 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  133 

to  the  rebellion  and  to  the  French  prince, 
and  Worcester  did  what  Marlborough  had 
done. 

London  was  against  the  Plantagenet  with 
nearly  all  the  chief  nobles  and  all  the  invaders. 
The  situation  was  saved,  as  I  have  said,  by 
the  line  of  the  Thames  and  by  Dover,  and 
never  did  the  all-importance  of  the  system 
of  castles  in  English  medieval  warfare  appear 
more  clearly. 

Philip  Augustus,  the  French  King,  the 
father  of  the  man  who  was  now  attempting 
the  English  throne,  had  a  great  eye  for 
country  and  for  the  main  elements  of  a  strategic 
problem.  He  was,  perhaps,  the  chief  soldier 
of  his  time.  He  had  urged  upon  his  son  the 
necessity  of  seizing  Dover,  with  its  castle, 
before  anything  else  was  done,  and  it  would 
have  been  well  for  Prince  Louis  had  he 
followed  his  father's  advice.  Now  that  the 
whole  of  the  south  and  west  seemed  to  have 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  Louis's  party,  that 
prince  turned  somewhat  too  late  to  the 
reduction  of  the  Dover  castle,  the  defence 
of  which  denied  him  a  monopoly  in  the  com- 
munications with  the  Continent. 

As  so  often  happens  in  the  strategical  history 
of  a  failure,  the  brilliance  of  previous  successes 
concealed    from    the    party    of    the    French 


184        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

invader  and  the  Barons  the  fact  that  they 
had  lost  their  opportunity.  When  John  had 
retired  from  Winchester  it  was  to  the  south 
that  he  retired,  into  Dorset.  The  King  of 
Scotland  had  not  only  reappeared  in  the  north 
but  had  been  able  to  march  right  down  to 
the  south  of  England  unimpeded,  renewing 
that  claim  which  John,  a  few  months  before, 
had  so  fiercely  destroyed,  and,  indeed,  no 
contemporary  observer  could  have  imagined 
anything  but  the  approaching  destruction  of 
the  House  of  Plantagenet. 

But  Dover  held  out.  It  held  out  under 
the  command  of  that  Hubert  de  Burgh 
whose  great  part  in  the  salvation  of  the 
dynasty  I  could  wish  to  linger  upon,  did  this 
little  book  concern  itself  with  the  political 
history  of  England.  While  Dover  held  out 
tenaciously,  Windsor  held  out  as  well,  and 
between  them  these  two  defences  determined 
the  issue  of  the  campaign. 

For  one  thing,  time  was  gained  by  these 
prolonged  defences — and,  indeed,  to  gain  time 
is  the  chief  object  of  fortification.  Among 
other  effects  of  that  delay  was  the  formation 
of  associations  within  the  counties,  farming 
men  who  began  to  resist  the  foreigners. 

Again,  the  resistance  of  Dover  and  of 
Windsor  permitted  the  recovery  of  Worcester, 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  135 

which  the  King's  forces  reobtained  in  the 
course  of  July. 

In  the  month  of  August,  while  the  army 
of  the  Rebellion  and  the  Invader  was  sitting 
down  hopelessly  before  Dover,  and  while 
Windsor  with  magnificent  tenacity  had  de- 
stroyed all  hope  of  assault  against  it  and 
had  turned  the  efforts  of  the  besiegers  into 
a  mere  blockade,  John  moved.  He  went 
right  up  from  Dorset  through  the  Valley  of 
the  Severn,  and  down  again  to  make  certain 
of  a  western  line,  limiting  and  framing  the 
efforts  of  his  opponents.  Next  he  did  what 
convinces  us  of  his  grasp.  He  got  right 
across  eastward  so  as  to  draw  a  northern  limit 
also  against  the  power  of  his  enemies. 

London,  remember,  he  could  not  touch. 
London  was,  throughout  the  Middle  Ages, 
as  I  have  said  so  often,  the  inviolable  point. 
But  when  he  had  constituted  a  western  limit 
against  the  foe,  and  then  a  northern  limit 
beyond  which  London  and  those  whom  London 
supported  could  not  strike,  he  would  have 
confined  the  enemy  to  the  south  and  to  the 
east  of  England,  and  from  the  bases  of  the 
north  and  of  the  west  he  could  recover  his 
realm. 

It  was  with  the  end  of  August  that  he 
marched  right  for  the  line  of   the  Thames. 


136        WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

It  was  no  chance  blow.  He  knew  what  the 
effect  would  be.  By  the  time  he  had  reached 
Wallingford,  the  third  of  the  line  of  fortresses 
commanding  the  river,  and  was  evidently  head- 
ing eastward,  the  besiegers  of  Windsor  grew 
alarmed. 

It  was  the  Count  of  Nevers,  the  French 
commander,  who  seized  the  nature  of  John's 
move.  He  appreciated  what  the  raid  across 
the  north  of  England  to  the  east  would 
mean  :  the  cutting  off  of  London  from  the 
north,  the  isolation  of  the  successful  invasion 
and  of  the  successful  rebels  from  the  whole  of 
England  save  the  south  and  east  and,  if 
Dover  still  held  out,  a  grave  peril  in  the 
matter  of  supplies. 

There  was  a  sort  of  race  as  to  which  should 
get  control  of  the  northern  roads  and,  as 
always  happens  in  converging  movements  of 
the  sort,  the  better  trained  army  won.  Both 
were  making  for  Cambridge.  John  got  there 
first,  although  from  Wallingford  to  Cambridge 
is  at  least  one  long  day's  march  farther  than 
from  Windsor  to  the  same  point.  There 
have  been  many  such  movements  in  the  long 
story  of  arms,  movements  in  which  two 
opposing  forces  are  marching  not  one  against 
the  other,  but  both  for  one  point  of  converg- 
ence, seeing  which  can  reach  it  first.     Who 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  137 

wins  in  such  a  race  is  master,  and  John  had  won. 
By  that  fine  stroke  eastward,  he  had  come  to 
control  all  the  northern  roads  giving  access 
to  London,  leaving,  as  we  must  presume, 
a  garrison  upon  each.  The  Barons  had  lost 
the  move.  They  went  back  to  help  the  force 
before  Dover,  and  in  that  strategical  defeat 
of  their  enemy  the  family  of  Plantagenet  had 
secured  a  continued  inheritance. 

For  what  followed  was  no  longer  of  great 
consequence.  A  force  of  the  Rebels  and  of 
the  French  prince's  was  besieging  Lincoln,  the 
fortress  and  depot  flanking  the  road  between 
north  and  south.  Now  that  John  had  cut 
off  London  from  the  north,  that  siege  was 
easily  raised.  His  march  down  south  again, 
through  Lincolnshire  to  the  Wash,  might 
have  led  to  a  thorough  reconquest  of  the 
south  had  he  survived,  but  immediately  after 
effecting  it  he  died  (whether  by  poison  or 
how  will  never  be  known)  at  Newark,  upon 
the  19th  of  October,  1216. 

As  has  so  continually  happened  in  the 
history  of  strategics  and  of  warfare,  the 
foundations  of  success  had  been  so  securely 
laid  by  one  good  move  that  subsequent 
disasters,  even  the  death  of  the  general 
himself,  could  not  undo  their  effect.  Within 
the  week  of  John's  death,  Dover  surrendered. 


138        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

The  coronation  of  his  nine-year-old  boy  not 
a  fortnight  later  at  Gloucester,  without  a 
crown,  with  a  mere  band  of  gold,  hardly  with 
ceremony  and,  as  it  were,  a  Pretender,  was, 
nevertheless,  the  coronation  of  a  man  destined 
to  reign  over  England  for  a  lifetime.  I  say 
again,  the  House  of  Plantagenet  was  saved, 
and  it  had  been  saved  by  the  great  eastern 
march  of  the  King  just  dead. 

For  now  it  was  no  longer  morally  possible 
that  the  Invader,  or  that  the  Rebels,  or  the 
Scotch  King,  should  between  them  dismember 
England.  John  was  in  his  grave,  but  he  had 
won.     And  he  had  won  as  a  strategist. 

Louis  garrisoned,  after  his  enemy's  death, 
Norwich  and  Colchester  and  Orford  (then 
a  great  port — its  traditions  are  still  amazing), 
but  he  was  doomed.  In  the  May  of  the 
following  year  a  last  attempt  of  the  Invaders 
upon  Lincoln  was  broken.  A  national  fleet 
held  the  Channel  in  the  same  August,  cutting 
off  Louis  from  France;  in  September,  less 
than  eleven  months  after  John's  great  march 
and  death,  Louis,  by  the  Treaty  of  Lambeth, 
abandoned  his  claims  and,  in  a  phrase  which 
ought  not  to  be  forgotten,  though  its  appear- 
ance at  so  early  a  date  is  a  trifle  rhetorical, 
"  England  was  England." 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  139 

CHAPTER  V 

medieval  warfare — ii 
The  Barons'  Wars 

The  next  clear  episode  in  the  story  of 
medieval  warfare  in  England  takes  place 
nearly  fifty  years  after  the  campaign  of  Magna 
Charta,  and  is  the  rising  of  the  aristocracy,  or 
at  least  a  principal  part  of  it,  against  Henry 
III.  Of  that  rising  Simon  de  Montfort  was  the 
leader,  and  it  is  intimately  connected  with 
the  development  of  the  English  Parliament 
upon  the  model  of  the  earlier  Continental 
Assemblies. 

With  the  politics  of  the  period  this  study 
can  have  nothing  to  do  save  in  so  far  as  they 
afford  an  explanation  of  its  military  side  : 
and  in  this  aspect  they  are  exceedingly  simple. 
The  political  object  on  the  one  side  as  on  the 
other  was  to  obtain  control  of  the  executive 
machinery  of  the  country,  of  the  power  of 
issuing  writs  and  garrisoning  fortresses.  To 
effect  this  the  victor  in  a  decisive  action  in 
particular  desired  to  obtain  custody  of  the 
person  of  the  King  :  and  it  may  almost  be 
said  that  the  varying  fortunes  of  the  campaign 
turned  upon  the   capture  and  recapture  o 


140        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

Henry  Ill's  body.  Of  such  moment  still 
was  the  executive  power  of  the  hereditary 
monarch. 

The  period  of  operations  is  a  short  one. 
After  a  very  long  preliminary  stage  of  political 
discussion  covering  several  years,  Simon  de 
Montfort  committed  the  first  acts  of  hostility 
in  the  second  week  of  June  1263.  He  fell  in 
battle,  and  the  effort  of  his  party  terminated, 
upon  the  4th  of  August,  1265. 

These  twenty-six  months  are  divided,  as  to 
their  military  aspect,  into  three  quite  distinct 
phases. 

(1)  There  is  a  preliminary  phase  of  no 
military  importance  save  that  it  brings  Simon's 
army  into  the  field  and  inaugurates  a  state  of 
war.  This  phase  covered  the  last  six  months 
of  1263.  It  was  succeeded  by  a  truce  and 
by  a  consent  of  both  parties  to  arbitration. 

The  arbitration  went  against  the  Barons 
at  the  end  of  January  1264,  whereupon  Simon 
de  Montfort's  party  went  back  upon  their 
pledge  and  initiated  the  second  phase  of  the 
war  in  the  succeeding  February. 

(2)  This  second  phase  was  for  the  moment 
decisive  and  closed  on  the  14th  of  May,  1264, 
with  a  great  general  action  at  Lewes,  in  which 
Simon  totally  overthrew  the  Royal  party  and 
captured  the  persons  of  King  Henry  and  his 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  141 

son  Edward,  later  to  be  that  great  King  and 
soldier  Edward  I. 

From  this  14th  of  May,  1264,  for  just  over 
one  year,  that  is  until  the  28th  of  May,  1265, 
Simon  de  Montfort  was  the  real  ruler  of 
England,  and  though-there  is  some  sporadic 
fighting  among  individuals,  for  loot,  locally, 
rather  than  for  any  cause,  however  vague, 
the  whole  of  that  year  may  be  excepted  from 
the  military  history  of  the  country,  for  no 
definite  campaign  was  in  progress  and  no 
warfare  on  a  national  scale  was  taking  place. 

(3)  But  on  this  28th  of  May,  1265,  the 
third  phase  begins :  on  that  day  the  young 
Prince  of  Wales  escaped  from  the  custody  of 
Simon  de  Montfort,  joined  certain  forces  in 
sjnnpathy  with  his  father's  cause,  raised 
others,  and  after  a  brief  campaign  of  the 
highest  strategical  interest  brought  Simon  to 
action  at  Evesham,  completely  destroyed  his 
army  and  restored  the  independence  of  the 
Crown.  With  the  date  of  this  battle,  the  4th  of 
August,  1265,  ends  the  third  phase  of  the  war. 

The  First  Phase  (June  to  December,  1263). 

The  first  phase  of  the  war  is  of  little  interest 
in  the  study  of  military  topography.  It  is 
confused  and  ends  indecisively.  Such  as  it  is 
it  may  be  briefly  told. 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  143 

The  long  political  quarrel  which  had  been 
dragging  on  even  in  its  acute  stage  for  nearly 
ten  years,  culminated  in  so  definite  a  stand 
upon  the  part  of  Henry  III  against  the  in- 
dependent attitude  of  the  aristocracy  and  of 
Simon  in  particular  as  to  provoke  the  latter 
to  the  first  definite  act  of  war.  De  Montfort 
raised  an  army  of  feudal  adherents  and  friends 
(as  yet  unsupported  by  any  popular  levies), 
and  with  that  force  he  successfully  struck  at 
the  west  and  at  that  Severn  Valley  which 
was  to  play  so  great  a  part  in  the  close  of  the 
campaign.  He  captured  the  Bishop  of  Here- 
ford, a  supporter  of  the  King's  party,  upon  the 
11th  of  June;  he  took  Gloucester,  Worcester, 
and  Bridgnorth  and  garrisoned  their  castles. 
His  next  step  was  to  bring  in  the  factor  which 
recurrently  determines  the  issue  of  military 
operations  in  this  country  during  the  Middle 
Ages  :  the  obstacle,  the  base  of  supply,  and  the 
nodal  point  of  communication  which  are  all 
summed  up  in  the  word  London.  He  marched 
straight  from  the  west  upon  the  capital. 

The  attitude  of  London  is  not  so  easy  to 
determine  from  contemporary  witnesses  as  it 
would  be  were  those  witnesses  less  partisan. 
But  it  may  be  laid  down  with  fair  certitude 
that  if  certain  of  the  very  greatest  merchants 
desired,  probably  for  the  sake  of  peace,  the 


144        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

maintenance  of  the  King  against  the  rebelHon, 
the  mass  of  the  commercial  interests  in  the 
town,  certainly  the  mayor,  and  to  a  very  large 
extent  the  populace  (which,  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  were,  it  must  always  be  remembered, 
a  powerful  economic  body  of  small  owners, 
strongly  organised  in  co-operative  associations), 
were  actively  in  favour  of  De  Montfort. 

The  effect  of  this  attitude  upon  the  part  of 
London  was  immediate.  Royal  troops  held 
the  Tower,  but  the  possession  of  the  castle  had 
no  such  effect  in  the  case  of  London  as  it  had 
in  the  smaller  towns;  it  carried  with  it  no 
control  over  the  immensely  larger  population 
of  the  capital,  nor  any  power  of  commanding 
its  supplies  and  wealth.  The  Prince  of  Wales 
did  manage  to  raise  a  sum  of  money — not, 
indeed,  from  citizens  as  a  whole  but  from  the 
Temple  only — and  having  done  that  his  first 
care  was  to  march  out  of  a  hostile  centre  far 
too  large  for  his  forces  or  those  of  his  father 
to  subdue.  Once  again,  therefore,  as  we  have 
to  note  perpetually  in  the  story  of  English 
warfare,  London  acts  as  a  virtually  autono- 
mous military  element,  and  the  scale  into 
which  it  throws  its  weight  preponderates. 
Edward  withdrew  his  forces  to  Windsor,  and 
the  value  of  the  opinion  of  London  was  further 
proved  by  a  skirmish  to  the  south  of  the  river 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  145 

in  which  Simon,  though  at  the  head  of  a  very- 
small  force  of  armed  men,  was  saved  by  the 
opening  of  the  gates  of  the  town  to  him,  and 
his  retirement  within  its  defences. 

With  Edward  garrisoning  Windsor  and  a 
large  Royal  army  in  the  field,  with  the  Barons' 
party  reposing  upon  London  as  a  base,  all  the 
strategical  elements  with  which  we  are  already 
familiar  were  present  for  a  great  struggle  upon 
the  lines  which  had  been  followed  in  what 
I  have  called  the  campaign  of  Magna  Charta 
fifty  years  before  :  the  holding  of  the  line  of 
the  Thames :  the  struggle  for  the  key  to 
continental  communications,  which  was  the 
castle  of  Dover :  individual  sieges  of  the  other 
strongholds,  and  particularly  of  the  castles 
that  commanded  the  great  northern  roads 
leading  into  the  capital. 

But  no  such  struggle,  as  a  fact,  took  place 
at  that  moment.  On  the  contrary,  a  truce 
was  arranged,  as  I  have  said,  and  both  parties 
consented  to  submit  the  quarrel  to  arbitration. 
The  arbitrator  chosen  was  St.  Louis,  the  King 
of  France,  the  son  of  that  man  who  had 
attempted  to  obtain  the  English  throne  in  the 
campaign  which  I  described  in  my  last  section, 
and  who  but  for  the  military  energy  of  John 
would  undoubtedly  have  attained  his  object. 

No  man  in  Europe  commanded,  or  perhaps 


146        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

has  since  commanded,  the  universal  respect 
which  St.  Louis  enjoyed  in  this  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century.  No  man  was  more  per- 
meated with  that  conception  of  government 
which  satisfied  the  happy  and  stable  society 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  nor  could  the  decision  of 
any  other  man  be  compared  to  his  for  the 
integrity  upon  which  it  would  be  founded. 
When,  therefore,  it  was  decided  to  submit 
the  question  to  St.  Louis,  general  opinion 
foresaw  a  certain  cessation  of  the  struggle, 
a  cessation  that  would  be  the  more  certain 
when  St.  Louis'  sentence  should  have  been 
confirmed  at  Rome. 

With  this  arrangement,  to  which  both  sides 
were  pledged,  ends  the  first  and  somewhat 
confused  phase  of  the  struggle. 

The  Second  Phase  [January  1264  to  May 
1264). 

What  St.  Louis  had  to  decide  was  whether 
certain  large  concessions  which  Henry  had 
made  to  the  aristocracy  some  years  before, 
which  he  had  recently  refused  to  confirm  on 
the  plea  that  they  were  wrung  from  him  by 
force,  were  to  stand  or  no.  The  French  King 
opened  the  Arbitration  Court  at  Amiens ;  its 
sentence  was  no  compromise  between  the  two 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  147 

parties,  but  a  perfectly  clear  declaration  for 
the  King.  It  restored  to  him  the  plenitude 
of  his  power,  summoned  his  vassals  to  return 
to  their  allegiance,  and  in  particular  proposed 
to  curb  the  particularist  pretensions  of  the 
great  feudatories  and  notably  of  De  Montfort, 
which  were  abhorrent  to  the  morals  of  a  time 
especially  jealous  of  the  encroachments  of  the 
great  against  the  general  control  of  those  new 
national  monarchies  which  all  Europe  now 
regarded  as  the  guarantees  of  popular  liberties. 
This  decision,  which  is  called  the  Mise  of 
Amiens,  was  issued  upon  the  23rd  of  January, 
1264. 

For  a  full  comprehension  of  what  followed 
it  would  be  of  advantage  (if  I  had  the  space) 
to  describe  for  the  reader  the  character  of  De 
Montfort.  I  must  content  myself  with  pre- 
senting to  the  reader  the  picture  of  a  man  made 
after  a  model  not  unfamiliar  to  those  who 
have  studied  the  various  types  of  the  Gallic 
temperament  when  it  is  affected  by  military 
ambition. 

Brutal  in  discipline,  of  an  indomitable 
physical  tenacity  which  could  force  him  to 
endure  more  than  all  he  imposed  upon  his 
followers,  perpetually  considering  death,  and 
above  all  persuaded  of  something  sacred  in 
his  career  and  capable  of  informing  with  a 


148        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

sense  of  mission  any  object  of  arms  he  had 
before  him,  Simon  de  Montfort  repeats  what 
half  a  dozen  of  the  northern  French  leaders 
in  the  First  Crusade  exhibited,  and  what  you 
may  later  find  in  the  recovery  of  France  from 
the  Plantagenets,  in  the  Wars  of  Religion, 
and  conspicuously  in  the  enthusiasms  of  the 
Revolution,  with  its  mystical  creed  and  its 
enormous  and  permanent  achievement. 

It  was  his  personality  around  which  the 
next  eighteen  months  of  fighting  were  to 
turn :  his  ceaseless  confidence  in  a  divine 
selection,  and  his  fierce  insistence  upon  religion 
in  his  forces,  between  them  determine  the 
character  of  the  struggle  :  his  corresponding 
lack  of  equity,  which  was  all  merged  in 
fanaticism,  drove  him  and  his :  his  eye  for 
arrangement  and  for  chance  made  him  in 
particular  a  leader  of  cavalry. 

Consonant  with  the  character  of  such  a  man 
came,  after  the  Mise  of  Amiens,  an  immediate 
repudiation  by  him  of  his  own  pledges.  The 
Barons  again  gathered  their  forces,  the  Royal 
party  was  again  compelled  to  defend  the 
King's  claim  under  arms. 

Very  few  days  passed  between  the  receipt 
in  England  of  the  news  that  St.  Louis  had 
decided  for  Henry,  and  the  first  blows  struck 
by  the  rebels.     Already  in  the  early  part  of 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  149 

February  1264,  the  perpetual  border  fighting 
on  the  Welsh  marches  was  made  a  pretext 

Leiees/er     D  \ 

\      \ 

\   \ 

f-'orfharrplon    [7]  '. 

■"■■■■"/  \ 

1 
/'  I 

/ 

J)xPora    /  I 

j         4^.¥.' 

i    '^ — ^ 

/ 

>       flings    March 

i*"       Bdrcrj 

for  the  seizure  by  the  party  of  De  Montfort 
of  certain  Royal  castles  in  the  west.  Henry 
came    back    from    France    (where    he    had 


150        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

attended  the  Court  of  Arbitration)  upon  the 
15th  of  February,  to  find  himself  face  to  face 
with  an  enemy  already  in  the  field. 

The  strategical  elements  of  this  new  struggle 
w  ere  as  follows  :  The  Cinque  Ports  with  their 
castles — ^that  is  all  the  southern  entries  into 
England  by  which  the  approach  from  the 
Continent  could  be  made  upon  London — ^were 
with  Simon,  and  London,  of  course,  was  still 
very  strong  in  support  of  him.  Rochester,  the 
great  castle  breaking  the  road  between  Dover 
and  London,  was,  however,  garrisoned  by 
Royal  troops;  so  was  the  line  of  strongholds 
upon  the  Thames.  Henry  summoned  a  con- 
ference between  himself  and  his  foes  in  March 
at  Oxford.  Simon  came  to  it  but  only  to 
announce  his  determination  upon  continuing 
the  war. 

Upon  the  3rd  of  March  the  army  of  the 
King,  true  to  that  strategical  conception 
which  required  whatever  party  in  a  war  had 
London  against^him  to  cut  London  off  from 
the  north — the  same  strategy  as  had  deter- 
mined King  John  to  make  that  great  march 
of  his  eastward  from  Wallingford  —  took 
Henry's  force  from  Oxford  eastward  and  north- 
ward also,  so  as  to  cut  the  approaches  to 
London  from  the  rest  of  the  island.  The 
move  was  successful.     The  three  strongholds 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  151 

that  commanded  the  approaches  from  the 
north,  Northampton,  Leicester,  and  Notting- 
ham, were  successively  taken. 

While  the  King  thus  secured  the  line  cutting 
off  London  from  the  north  (we  have  seen  that 
he  already  held  the  Thames  line  cutting  off 
London  from  the  west),  the  Barons,  to  secure 
the  whole  of  that  south  and  east  wherein  they 
already  possessed  London  and  the  Channel 
ports,  laid  siege  to  Rochester,  the  one  garrison 
which  blocked  the  main  road  between  Dover 
which  was  theirs  and  London  which  was  theirs. 
The  Royal  army  having  secured  the  northern 
fortresses  marched  back  round  London  into 
Kent  to  relieve  Rochester.  They  succeeded 
in  relieving  it. 

These  movements  were  over  by  the  begin- 
ning of  spring,  and  the  Royal  army  as  it  left 
Rochester  which  it  had  relieved,  found  itself 
marching  through  that  south-east  of  England 
which  was  the  enemy's,  and  necessarily  draw- 
ing against  it  from  London  Simon  and  his 
forces. 

The  King  might  have  attacked  any  one  of 
the  seaport  castles  and  have  attempted  a 
gradual  reduction  of  the  coast.  To  have 
done  so  would  have  been  to  isolate  London 
entirely,  and  to  have  made  certain  his  ultimate 
success.     He  was   prevented  from  pursuing 


152        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

such  a  plan,  by  the  immediate  necessity  of 
meeting  in  the  field  a  great  force  which  De 
Montfort  had  levied  against  him.  That  force 
was  not  even  for  the  bulk  of  it  a  force  of 
feudal  knights.  It  was  swelled  by  great 
levies  from  London  and  even  from  certain 
other  towns  :  it  is  the  presence  of  these  which 
lends  some  countenance  to  the  historians  who 
maintain  that  Simon  had  a  true  popular 
backing. 

Against  the  approach  of  so  large  a  body  it 
was  impossible  for  King  Henry  and  Edward, 
Prince  of  Wales,  to  attempt  the  prolonged  siege 
of  any  one  of  the  coast  castles,  during  which 
operation  they  would  have  certainly  been 
caught  by  the  enemy  in  force.  Observe,  there- 
fore, that  it  was  the  backing  which  London 
gave  to  the  rebellion  which  determined  all  the 
last  strategy  of  this  campaign. 

King  Henry  came  up  the  Vale  of  Glynde 
to  Lewes.  From  Fletching,  close  at  hand, 
Simon  de  Montfort  both  sent  and  accepted 
challenge,  having  marched  down  so  far  from 
London.  This  was  upon  the  12th  of  May. 
Upon  the  14th  the  two  armies  met  upon  that 
open  slope  of  chalk  turf  above  Lewes  where 
the  racecourse  now  stands,  and  between  that 
site  and  the  steep  escarpment  of  the  Downs 
to  the  north.     The  result  of  the  encounter 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  153 

was  the  complete  defeat  of  the  Royal  army, 
the  capture  of  the  King  and  the  Prince  of 
Wales  by  the  leader  of  the  rebellion,  and  his 
consequent  mastery  of  England. 

From  the  evening  of  Wednesday,  the 
14th  of  May,  1264,  Simon  could  and  did  issue 
writs  in  the  name  of  the  King,  his  captive, 
whom  he  carried  about  with  him.  He 
garrisoned  all  the  Royal  castles  and  for  a  year 
ruled  England.  So  ended  the  second  phase 
of  these  hostilities. 

The  Third  Phase  (May  1265  to  Aug.  1265). 

The  political  events  of  the  year  elapsing 
between  the  Battle  of  Lewes  and  the  resump- 
tion of  the  war  (from  May  1264  to  May 
1265),  have  little  concern  for  us  :  but  two 
matters  personal  to  the  military  leaders 
must  be  grasped  if  we  are  to  understand  the 
sequel. 

The  first  of  these  is  that  the  strongest 
feudal  chief  in  alliance  with  Simon  de 
Montfort  was  the  Earl  of  Gloucester,  and  in 
the  course  of  the  year  that  very  powerful 
noble,  with  a  great  body  of  feudal  dependants 
and  one  might  almost  say  subjects,  in  the 
Severn  Valley,  quarrelled  with  the  head  of  his 
party. 

The  second  is  that  Simon  de  Montfort  held 


154        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

in  England  the  feudal  position  of  Earl  of 
Leicester,  and  had,  not  as  his  private  possession 
(for  all  fortresses  were  still  regarded  as 
properly  the  strongholds  of  the  Crown),  but 
none  the  less  as  a  place  of  habitation  and  a 
family  centre,  the  castle  of  Kenilworth,  a  few 
miles  north  of  Warwick.  This  point,  though 
purely  domestic,  turns  out  to  be  of  great 
importance  in  the  ensuing  campaign. 

The  ceaseless  border  warfare  between  local 
lords,  now  Welsh  against  English,  now  at 
cross  purposes,  English  and  Welsh  against 
English  and  Welsh,  drew  Simon  as  the  virtual 
governor  of  the  country  beyond  the  Severn 
exactly  a  year  after  the  Battle  of  Lewes. 
He  went  to  impose  peace  upon  the  district; 
he  took  with  him,  of  course,  the  captive  King 
and  Prince  of  Wales,  with  all  the  power  to 
issue  writs  and  to  govern  which  the  presence 
of  the  Crown  implied.  Though,  therefore, 
he  had  gone  so  far  as  Hereford,  and  was  cut 
off  from  the  rest  of  England  by  that  Valley 
of  the  Severn  iii  which  the  family  of  the  Earl 
of  Gloucester  was  supreme,  he  felt  secure. 

But  on  the  28th  of  May  the  Prince  of 
Wales  escaped  from  the  narrow  guardianship 
which  Simon  had  set  over  him.  Throughout 
his  life  this  man  was  particularly  remarkable 
for  the  promptitude  of  his  military  action. 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  155 

He  was,  in  this  May  of  1265,  not  quite  twenty- 
six  years  old,  and  this  soldier  who  was  to  be 
so  great  in  English  history  after,  under  the 
title  of  the  first  Edward,  inheriting  all  the 
rapid  decision  of  the  Proven9al  blood  (his 
mother,  from  whom  his  character  sprang, 
was  from  the  south),  turned  the  course  of 
the  war. 

It  was  just  before  sunset  of  the  28th  of 
May,^  that  the  young  man  had  made  his 
escape.  There  was  a  concerted  plan  arranged 
for  his  succour,  and  that  night  he  slept  in 
the  castle  of  Wigmore  among  friends,  a 
border  castle  of  the  marches  garrisoned  by 
the  Mortimers. 

The  next  day  he  met^xloucester  at  Ludlow, 
and  the  armed  reaction  against  Simon  had 
begun. 

As  for  Simon,  when,  in  Hereford  and  with 
the  King  at  his  side,  he  heard  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales's  escape,  he  had  no  clue  as  to  the  direc- 
tion which  the  fugitive  might  have  taken.  He 
knew  that  there  was  some  talk  of  a  force 
coming  in  the  Royalist  cause  from  over  sea 

^  And  here,  again,  I  wish  I  had  the  space  to  illuminate 
this  story  by  a  picture  :  it  was  on  that  high  ridge  of 
Tillington  which  overlooks  Hereford  from  the  north  and 
west  that  young  Edward  saw  the  single  figure  issuing 
from  the  wood,  recognised  the  signal,  and  galloped  to  meet 
his  friends. 


156        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

to  the  Pembrokeshire  coast — ^they  had  indeed 
landed.  De  Montfort  issued  writs  all  over  the 
country,  accusing  Edward  of  rebellion  and 
treason,  and  summoned  by  the  Royal  writ 
feudal  levies  from  all  over  the  kingdom  to 
the  Severn  Valley.  By  an  accident  which  has 
never  been  explained  in  so  great  a  commander, 
but  probably  because  he  did  not  know  what 
forces  he  had  in  front  of  him  and  wanted  to 
gather  all  the  regular  bodies  he  could  before 
fighting  a  decisive  action,  De  Montfort 
remained  in  that  distant  western  post  of 
Hereford  apparently  inactive.  He  secured 
himself  for  the  coming  struggle  by  a  treaty 
with  the  Welsh  chiefs,  which  virtually  de- 
stroyed the  claim  of  the  English  Crown  over 
them.  He  even  engaged  not  a  small  force 
of  Welshmen  to  join  his  command,  and  at 
last,  but  very  late,  after  more  than  a  month's 
delay  he  moved.  Even  so  he  did  not  dare 
move  towards  the  Severn.  He  hoped  to 
turn  that  line  by  crossing  the  Bristol  Channel 
from  Newport,  and  so  re-entering  South 
England  by  the  harbour  of  Bristol,  the 
castle  of  which  was  still  garrisoned  by  his  men. 
But  while  De  Montfort  had  thus  lain  so 
strangely  inactive,  Edward  had  moved  Glou- 
cester to  do  everything  required  for  success. 
He  had  marched  all  up  and  down  the  west 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE 


157 


recruiting  until  a  very  considerable  force  was 
raised  from  lands  as  distant  as  Cheshire  and 
the  Irish  Sea  on  the  one  hand,  Somerset  and 
the  Bristol  Channel  on  the  other.     They  took 


\       \                                    Henilworth 

^W/gmoreCb5tle''\     ^,              ,,-^V-^ 

'      .      /           ?/v      r -^-^^  Evesham 

— /D  Glo'ster 


Ner^hort 


->■     recrujhn^  March 
?>     TrsiCH  of  Royalist  Arm^, 
>    Track  of  De  MontTtirt 


Worcester  without  fighting,  Gloucester  by 
storm,  and  after  two  weeks'  siege  the  castle 
of  Gloucester  as  well,  and  they  proceeded  for 
the  first  and  last  time  in  English  history  to 
make  of  the  Severn  itself  a  true  line  of  defence. 


158        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

My  readers  will  remember  on  a  former  page 
the  reasons  why  alone  of  our  chief  rivers  the 
Severn  has  not  played  a  great  part  in  the 
military  topography  of  England.  It  is  too 
shallow  and  too  easily  passable  for  that  role, 
nor  does  it  form  beyond  a  short  distance 
above  its  mouth  a  workable  means  of  com- 
munication, transport,  and  supply.  But  diffi- 
cult as  was  the  task  Edward  and  Gloucester 
determined  to  accomplish  it,  and,  indeed, 
De  Montfort's  lingering  upon  the  wrong  side 
of  the  river  could  suggest  no  other  course 
to  capable  leaders  than  the  attempt  to  contain 
him  by  holding  the  stream.  The  fords  were 
deepened  and  every  one  of  them  guarded, 
the  bridges  broken  down  and,  as  we  have 
seen,  when  Simon  did  move  he  could  hardly 
move  with  any  hope  of  success  against  the 
obstacle  into  which  the  Severn  had  been 
made  by  his  enemies.  Therefore  it  was  that 
he  struck  southward  for  Newport,  expecting 
transport  across  the  Bristol  Channel. 

He  was  disappointed.  Edward  attacked 
him  at  once.  Montfort  broke  the  bridge  over 
the  Usk,  and  that  obstacle  alone  saved  his 
army.  But  he  could  not  cross  over  to  the 
Somerset  shore;  Gloucester  blocked  it  and 
the  mouth  of  the  Avon  with  a  fleet,  and  the 
man  who  two  months  earlier  had  been  the 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  159 

master  of  England,  turned  back  again  into 
the  Welsh  hills,  still  carrying  with  him  the 
King,  and  thinking,  perhaps,  that  he  would 
be  condemned  to  a  decisive  action  with  his 
small  forces  somewhere  upon  the  Une  of  the 
Severn  which  his  enemies  held. 

Had  he  been  forced  to  such  an  action  in 
such  a  situation  he  could  hardly  have  avoided 
defeat,  but,  as  it  happened,  fate  gave  him 
one  more  chance. 

Among  those  summoned  to  Simon's  aid 
by  the  King's  writ  was  Simon's  own  son. 
The  writ  found  him  engaged  in  attempting 
to  reduce  the  only  castle  on  the  south  coast 
which  still  maintained  the  Royalist  cause. 
He  abandoned  the  siege  and  came  westward 
to  his  father's  aid,  but  made  first,  whether 
for  recruitment  or  whatever  other  cause,  for 
the  family  stronghold  at  Kenilworth.  He 
lay  there  upon  the  1st  of  August.  His  force 
was  small  and  was  but  one  of  many  which 
Simon  had  hoped  would  slowly  converge  to 
his  aid  upon  the  Severn  Valley. 

The  news  that  Simon's  son  thus  lay  at 
Kenilworth  tempted  Edward  to  one  of  the 
few  strategic  blunders  of  which  he  was 
guilty  in  the  course  of  a  long  life  of  arms.  He 
could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  capturing 
such  a  prisoner.     He  must  have  known  that 


160        WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

Simon  was  hovering  round  the  Hne  of  the 
Severn  in  front  of  his  own  position  at 
Worcester,  but  he  hoped  by  sufficiently 
rapid  marching  to  reach  Kenilworth,  take 
his  man,  and  be  back  at  Worcester  before 
Simon  could  take  advantage  of  his  absence. 
As  an  isolated  feat  what  Edward  did  was,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  very  fine.  He  covered  the 
more  than  thirty  miles  between  Worcester 
and  Kenilworth  in  one  night  march,  captured 
many  of  the  small  force  in  houses  outside 
the  fortress,  but  missed  his  chief  object;  for 
De  Montfort's  son,  though  he  also  had  slept 
outside,  just  got  behind  the  walls  in  time. 
Edward  swept  back  to  Worcester  with  the 
same  speed  as  he  had  shown  in  his  dash  to 
Kenilworth  from  it;  but  the  interval  of 
absence,  brief  as  it  was,  had  ruined  all  the 
careful  arrangement  whereby  the  Severn  had 
been  made  an  impassable  barrier  containing 
Simon.  That  soldier  took  immediate  ad- 
vantage of  Edward's  short  but  ill-judged 
absence  to  the  east;  he  marched  at  once 
for  the  ford  of  Kempsey,  crossed  it  in  safety, 
and  found  himself  at  last  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  river.  He  had  evaded  a  decisive  action 
fought  against  him  under  conditions  most 
adverse  to  his  chances,  he  had  now  all 
England  before  him  in  which  to  seek  friends 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  161 

and  allies,  he  still  controlled  the  person  of 
the  King,  he  was  still  the  governor.  He  at 
once  made  for  the  east,  intending  as  an  initial 
step  to  make  for  his  own  castle  of  Kenil worth, 
and  thither  to  concentrate  or  thence  to  issue 
orders  for  a  very  considerable  recruitment; 
for  his  army  was  still  small  and  would  be  no 
match  for  his  enemies  until  he  had  joined 
to  it  those  adherents  between  whom  and 
himself,  now  that  the  Severn  was  crossed, 
there  was  no  obstacle. 

He  must,  upon  that  Sunday,  the  3rd  of 
August,  as  his  command  proceeded  in  a  long 
file  along  the  first  day's  march  of  twelve 
miles  to  Evesham,  have  felt  the  future  fairly 
secure.  A  quite  unexpected  piece  of  good 
fortune  had  allowed  him  to  turn  his  enemy's 
line,  and  he  was  marching  straight  and 
rapidly  for  those  garrisons  and  centres  of 
government  which,  through  his  possession 
of  the  King,  he  still  controlled. 

Edward  came  back  to  Worcester  on  that 
same  day.  He  appreciated  how  disastrous 
had  been  that  raid  of  his  on  Kenilworth,  but 
he  discovered  the  promptitude  to  repair  it,  and 
what  he  did  is  worthy  of  a  close  attention, 
for  it  is  one  of  the  best  pieces  of  military 
movement  in  the  whole  of  medieval  history. 

As  the  reader  will  see  from  the  neighbouring 


162 


WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 


map  Edward,  upon  that  Sunday  afternoon  at 
Worcester,  was  a  day's  march  behind  his 
enemy.  His  enemy  had  got  clean  away,  and 
the  Hne  of  the  Severn  was  now  useless.  How 
he  got  it  out  of  his  horses  and  his  men  we  do 


/riarch 


->    DeMontfvrCi  March. 
^    Edv^ards  March. 


not  know,  but  he  ordered  yet  another  night 
march,  gave  it  out  in  the  town  that  he  was 
making  for  Bridgnorth  so  that  news  should 
not  reach  Simon  of  his  real  intention  and, 
indeed,  began  his  march  up  the  Bridgnorth 
road  upon  the  western  bank  of  the  stream, 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  168 

as  though  he  were  looking  for  Simon's  army, 
believing  it  still  to  be  there,  and  ignorant  of 
the  crossing  which  his  enemy  had  effected 
a  few  hours  before.  When  the  people  of 
Worcester  had  seen  the  last  of  his  force 
disappearing  to  the  north  beyond  the  river, 
and  when  whatever  of  the  population  which 
had  sympathised  with  Simon  must  have 
imagined  that  Edward  was  completely  de- 
ceived as  to  his  enemy's  position,  Edward 
waited  for  the  darkness,  and  recrossed  the 
Severn  under  the  cover  of  it  by  that  ford 
which  you  may  still  find,  I  think,  close  to 
the  inn  that  stands  upon  the  bank  half-way 
between  Hallow  Heath  and  Claines.  He 
marched  right  round  Worcester  through  the 
night,  and  before  the  rising  of  the  sun  upon 
Monday,  the  4th  of  August,  1265,  he  had  his 
men  stretched  out  over  Harvington  Hill  and 
blocking  the  road  which  ran  northward  from 
Evesham  to  Kenilworth. 

He  had  got  right  round  his  enemy  in 
the  darkness  and  had  cut  off  that  enemy's 
inferior  forces  from  all  immediate  hope  of 
succour. 

It  must  have  been  at  a  great  expense  of 
men  and  of  horses  that  this  considerable 
night  march  of  full  twenty  miles  was  under- 
taken on  the  top  of  those  two  other  rapid 


164        WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

movements  to  and  from  Kenilworth.  It  was 
a  particularly  hazardous  experiment  which 
attempted  such  a  feat  of  physical  endurance 
immediately  before  what  was  bound  to  be  a 
strenuously  fought  action,  although  against 
inferior  forces,  but  it  is  by  taking  such  hazards 
that  battles  are  won;  and  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  a  great  part  of  the  army  consisted 
of  men  who  had  not  been  fatigued  by  the 
previous  expedition.  Indeed,  so  considerable 
was  the  royalist  force  that  it  was  able  not 
only  to  cover  the  direct  road  to  the  north  by 
Harvington  Hill,  but  as  it  would  seem  the 
whole  line  across  the  loop  of  the  river  in  which 
Evesham  stands.  Simon  de  Montfort  saw 
them  against  the  morning  as  they  topped  the 
hill  and  began  their  advance  downward  into 
the  Plain  of  Evesham,  and  gave  that  famous 
cry,  "  The  Lord  have  mercy  on  our  souls, 
for  our  bodies  are  Prince  Edward's." 

He  prayed  in  silence  at  some  length, 
received  Communion,  and  then  led  his  men 
for  the  only  attempt  that  was  possible  for 
a  man  caught  in  such  a  trap  :  an  attempt  to 
break  the  line  which  the  enemy  had  drawn 
from  the  river  to  the  river.  It  was  a  hopeless 
attempt  even  under  such  a  leader.  It  was  foiled, 
and  Simon's  command  was  surrounded  :  no 
quarter  was  given,  and  it  was  wholly  destroyed. 


MEDIEVAL   WARFARE  165 

When  this  great  soldier's  horse  had  been 
killed  under  him,  and  he  was  still  holding  his 
own  on  foot  in  the  melee,  he  is  said  to  have 
asked  whether  his  surrender  would  be  accepted 
and  to  have  had  answer  that  there  was  no 
treating  with  traitors.  His  son  Henry,  his 
heir,  fighting  at  his  side,  fell  first.  Simon 
himself  was  struck  down  immediately  after. 

When  the  victory  was  complete,  of  all  the 
gentlemen-in-arms  that  had  fought  under 
that  leader,  ten  only  remained  alive — and 
all  those  ten  were  wounded.  Even  the  King 
(a  man  never  of  great  strength  and  now  near 
his  sixtieth  year),  compelled  by  De  Montfort 
to  appear  in  the  ranks  of  the  battle,  was 
nearly  struck  down  in  the  general  slaughter, 
and  saved  himself  by  crying  to  the  man  that 
would  attack  him  :  "I  am  Henry  of  Win- 
chester, man  !  "  And  his  son  heard  him  and 
saved  him. 

This  complete  victory  ended  the  third  phase 
of  the  business  and  the  strategical  history 
of  the  war.  Much  separate  reduction  of 
rebellious  and  isolated  castles  was  necessary, 
notably  for  the  reduction  of  the  Cinque 
Ports;  but  after  the  result  of  Evesham,  the 
consecutive  history  of  the  rebellion  and  its 
chances  of  success  are  alike  ended. 


166         WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

CHAPTER  VI 

medieval  warfare — iii 
The  Wars  of  the  Roses 

The  third  great  military  episode  in  the 
EngHsh  Middle  Ages  is  commonly  known  as 
"  The  Wars  of  the  Roses,"  because  the  rival 
factions  between  which  this  civil  struggle  was 
waged  were  headed  by  the  House  of  Lancaster 
and  the  House  of  York,  of  which  the  first  took 
for  its  badge  a  red,  and  the  second  a  white 
rose. 

The  period  covered  extends  from  the  loss 
of  the  French  provinces  by  the  English  Crown 
to  the  defeat  and  death  of  Richard  III,  the 
last  of  the  Yorkists  on  the  field  of  Bosworth. 

The  date,  therefore,  which  is  the  origin  of 
our  study,  is  the  return  of  a  certain  Lancas- 
trian, the  Duke  of  Somerset,  in  1450,  from 
Normandy,  which  province  he  had  managed 
to  lose  for  the  English  King,  and  which  from 
that  year  remained  a  French  possession, 
while  the  Battle  of  Bosworth,  taking  place 
in  1485,  gives  us  a  total  interval  of  thirty-five 
years  for  this  conflict. 

It  is  not  easy  to  reduce  those  thirty-five 
years    to   any    orderly    scheme    which    shall 


Scu  t/tafif^^rtMr^  ftf^/t^ 


168        WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

exemplify  the  principles  of  strategy.  The 
problem  is  further  complicated  on  account 
of  the  absence  of  any  clear  principle  whereby 
we  may  distinguish  between  the  two  factions 
which  alternately  rose  and  fell  between  the 
return  of  Somerset  in  the  middle  of  the  century 
and  the  defeat  and  death  of  Richard  III  within 
fifteen  years  of  its  close. 

It  is  difficult,  indeed,  to  describe  in  ordinary 
military  terms  an  action  which  is  decided — 
as  were  many  of  the  actions  in  this  war — 
by  the  sudden  treason  of  one  leader,  by  the 
unexpected  aid  given  during  the  very  heat 
of  some  battle  to  a  Yorkist  enemy  by  a 
Lancastrian  chief,  or  to  a  Lancastrian  by  a 
Yorkist.  The  matter  is  further  embroiled 
by  a  whole  series  of  incidents  comic  in  their 
suddenness  and  lack  of  reason;  incidents 
such  as  the  sudden  disappearance  of  a  whole 
army  and  its  refusal,  for  some  political  reason, 
to  accept  a  decisive  action;  incidents  such 
as  the  unexpected  appearance  upon  the  coast 
of  one  or  the  other  party  in  the  guise  of  the 
invader  coming  in  too  strong  a  force  to  be 
resisted,  and  the  melting  away  of  resistance 
before  him. 

The  effect  of  all  this  apparently  meaningless 
counter-marching,  personal  betrayals,  and 
the  rest,  is  to  leave  the  student  of  the  period 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  169 

in  despair,  at  least  in  the  earlier  part  of  his 
study,  of  disentangling  those  few  main  lines 
upon  the  fixing  of  which  alone  the  character 
of  military  operations  can  be  comprehended 
and  remembered. 

One  scheme  does  solve  the  problem,  and 
make  of  this  most  involved  chapter  in  all  the 
military  history  of  England  an  understandable 
and  analysable  thing.  By  a  proper  distinction 
between  certain  leading  phases,  an  examina- 
tion of  each  phase,  of  the  causes  and  conse- 
quences of  the  victories  gained  by  either 
party,  we  can  seize  and  retain  so  true  a  plan 
of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  that  the  innumerable 
details  of  that  generation  can  group  themselves 
in  due  order  about  it. 

Three  phases  must  be  clearly  seized — 

(1)  The  first  extends  through  nine  years  : 
from  the  moment  when  King  Henry  VI  first 
marched  against  the  Duke  of  York  in  1452, 
to  the  final  victory  of  the  Duke  of  York's 
son  in  1461  at  Towton,  and  his  establishment, 
for  the  moment,  firmly  upon  the  throne. 

The  next  ten  years,  1461  to  1471,  must  be 
regarded  as  an  interval  dignified  by  no  true 
campaign  and  marked  only  by  the  suppression 
of  Lancastrian  risings. 

(2)  The  second  phase  of  the  Wars  of  the 
Roses  is  the  short  campaign  in  the  spring  of 


170        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

1471  which  was  decided  by  the  two  gr 
battles  of  Barnet  and  Tewkesbury,  and  agai 
confirmed  Edward  IV  upon  his  throne,  after 
ithat  capital  quarrel  with  Warwick,  his  chief 
supporter,  which  quarrel  for  a  moment  had 
all  but  undone  the  King. 

Another  fourteen  years  must  be  regarded 
as  an  interval  during  which  no  great  military 
operations  are  to  be  discovered,  full  though  they 
^re  of  the  threat  of  hostilities  and  of  perpetual 
^nd  cruel  reprisals  falling  upon  individuals. 

(3)  The  third  phase  opens  in  the  summer  of ' 
1485,  when,  on  the  1st  of  August,  Henry 
Tudor  sails  from  France  to  attack  Richard  III, , 
and  concludes  three  weeks  later,  when,  upon 
the  22nd  of  the  same  month,  the  invader 
utterly  defeats  that  king,  kills  him,  puts  an 
end,  upon  the  field  of  Bosworth,  to  the  whole 
business  of  York  and  Lancaster,  establishes 
in  England  for  more  than  a  century  the 
dynasty  of  the  Tudors,  and  closes  in  this  island 
the  book  of  Medieval  History. 

Before  considering  the  military  details  of 
these  three  phases,  we  must  first  recognise 
certain  political  matters  which  determine  the 
whole  period. 

When  we  were  speaking  of  the  Campaign 
of  Magna  Charta  we  spoke  of  an  England 
which   enjoyed   the   full    civilisation   of   the 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  171 

uiddle  Ages.  The  central  government,  that  is 
:he  King,  was  far  more  powerful  than  any 
3ne  subject.  The  castles,  upon  which,  ever 
since  the  Conquest,  the  military  story  of 
England  had  turned,  were  garrisoned  of  right 
by  royal  troops,  their  commanders,  though 
;)iten  hereditary  and  enjoying  a  quasi-posses- 
sion of  this  or  that  fortress,  openly  held  of 
the  King  and  were  always  revocable  by  him, 
not  only  in  legal  theory  but  in  social  fact. 

Even  in  that  second  chapter  of  medieval 
history,  the  revolt  of  De  Montfort  against 
Henry  III,  those  old  conventions  were  still 
secure,  and,  indeed,  it  was  a  proof  of  the  power 
of  the  Crown  that  rebellion  against  it  should 
have  to  be  upon  so  formidable  a  scale  and 
should  attract  to  itself  all  the  grudges  and 
ambitions  of  a  powerful  aristocracy  and  of 
the  great  town  of  London. 

But  a  century  and  a  half  after  De  Montfort's 
alternate  success  and  defeat,  there  had 
occurred  in  England  a  revolution  of  profound 
effect  to  all  the  future  history  of  the  country 
in  many  ways,  and  notably  in  the  dislike 
or  incapacity  of  our  people  for  democratic 
government.  We  feel  it  still.  This  revolution 
was  the  violent  usurpation  of  the  crown  by 
Henry  of  Lancaster,  who  became,  by  that 
action,  Henry  IV. 


172        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

The  story  can  be  briefly  told,  and,  though 
it  was  acted  fifty  years  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  must  be  told  before 
those  wars  can  be  understood. 

King  Edward  III,  who  reigned  throughout 
the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  from 
1327  to  1377,  rendered  his  reign  glorious  by 
military  successes  abroad  which,  though  he 
outlived  their  effect,  powerfully  impressed 
the  people  of  this  country.  His  son  and  heir, 
the  Black  Prince,  the  boy  of  Cr^cy  and  the 
victor  of  Poitiers,  did  not  survive  him.  The 
Black  Prince's  son  came  to  the  throne  as  a 
young  lad,  under  the  title  of  Richard  II.  He 
reigned  for  somewhat  over  twenty  years. 
It  was  a  period  of  very  rapid  social  change. 
The  French  language,  once  the  universal 
tongue  of  the  noble  and  military  class  and  of 
the  Court,  was  being  absorbed  by  England. 
The  great  shock  of  the  Black  Death  had 
permanently  unsettled  society,  the  Feudal 
system,  with  its  orderly  conception  of  tenure 
and  of  mutual  rights  and  duties,  had  grown 
old  and  fantastic,  religion  was  menaced  by  a 
new  atmosphere  of  heresy  succeeding  heresy, 
very  different  to  the  sporadic  outbreaks  of 
earlier  time.  In  a  word,  the  Middle  Ages  had 
begun  to  die  and  their  agony  was  to  last  a 
full  century. 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  178 

Perhaps  the  principal  quarrel  raised  by  the 
dissolution  of  the  old  medieval  scheme  of 
society  was  whether  its  heir  in  the  future 
should  be  a  strong  central  government  re- 
posing upon  the  populace,  and  gradually 
crushing  the  great,  or  a  strong  aristocracy 
forming  the  basis  of  government  at  the 
expense  of  both  the  Crown  and  the  people. 
French  development  between  the  Middle  Ages 
and  modern  times  took  the  first  of  these  two 
roads.  English  development  took  the  second  : 
it  has  ended,  as  we  know,  in  an  England 
essentially  oligarchic,  with  the  central  power 
of  the  Crown  virtually  destroyed,  and  the 
reins  of  society  in  the  hands  of  the  wealthy 
class  which  was  but  yesterday  an  amalgama- 
tion of  squires  and  great  merchants,  and  is, 
to-day,  whatever  you  may  choose  to  call  it 
— a  plutocracy  or  what  you  will.  All  this, 
whether  it  is  good  or  evil,  we  largely  owe  to 
the  action  which  Henry  of  Lancaster  took 
when  he  thrust  the  rightful  Plantagenet  King 
from  the  throne  which  had  dominated  all 
the  English  Middle  Ages,  and  occupied  that 
throne  himself. 

Richard  II,  as  I  have  said,  was  the  son  of 
the  Black  Prince,  and  the  Black  Prince  had 
been  the  eldest  of  the  sons  of  Edward  III. 
Of  Edward's  many  other  children  four  only 


174        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

concern  us.     Lionel,  who  came  next  after  the  i 
Black  Prince;  John,  called  John  of  Gaunt; 
the  Duke  of  Lancaster,  who  came  next,  and 
Edmund,  Duke  of  York,  who  came  next  again. 
Such  was  their  order  of  precedence,  and,  failing 
an  heir  to  Richard  II,  in  that  order  should  the 
male  descent  of  the  Crown  have  gone.     The  j 
son  of  John  of  Gaunt,  the  first  cousin,  there- 
fore,   of    Richard    II,    Henry    of    Lancaster,  [ 
taking    advantage    of    the    deep    resentment 
which  many  of  the  great  nobles  felt  against 
the  rule  of  Richard  (and  also  the  fact  that 
Richard  had  no  heir),  came  back  from  exile 
in  the  year   1399,   thrust  Richard  from  the; 
throne,  and  made  himself  king  under  the  title  j 
of  Henry  IV,  immediately  after  which  usurpa-  i 
tion  he  killed  his  legitimate  rival. 

Now  it  is  characteristic  of  this  crime,  and ! 
of  the  time  in  which  it  was  committed,  that  ^ 
the  usurper  could  not  be  secure  unless  hei 
reposed  upon  an  aristocratic  party,  and  he  < 
and  his  son,   Henry  V,   after  him,   and  the 
ministers  of  his  grandson,  Henry  VI,  during 
all  the  earlier  part  of  that  grandson's  reign, 
successively    weakened    the    old    religion    of 
royalty  in  England.     They  enormously  ad- 
vantaged the  squires :  they  gave  these  country 
gentlemen  (who  then,  of  course,  owned  far 
less  land  than  they  do  now,  for  they  were 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  17£k 

then  surrounded  by  a  free  peasantry)  the 
beginnings  of  their  later  power  over  local 
government,  and  inevitably  the  Lancastrian 
dynasty,  as  it  was  called,  could  not  but  permit 
the  wealthiest  of  the  aristocracy  to  achieve 
something  like  independence. 

The  glorious  adventure  of  Henry  V,  his 
conquest  of  northern  France,  and  the  name 
of  Agincourt,  masked  much  of  this  from  the 
eyes  of  the  nation ;  but  when  the  child  Henry 
VI,  whom  he  left  upon  the  throne,  lost,  town 
by  town,  the  whole  of  his  father's  conquest,, 
the  change  through  which  England  had 
passed  was  clearly  apparent.  The  greater 
nobles  were  almost  independent  of  the  crown, 
their  readiness  for  revolt  was  best  expressed 
by  Richard,  Duke  of  York,  who  had,  indeed^ 
from  his  father's  side,  less  title  even  than 
the  Lancastrian,  being  descended  from  that 
younger  son,  Edmund,  of  whom  I  have 
spoken  :  Edmund  was  his  grandfather,  but, 
on  his  mother's  side,  he  could  trace  himself 
indirectly,  through  yet  another  maternal 
ancestor,  to  Lionel,  the  eldest  son  after  the 
Black  Prince. 

No  great  heed  need  be  paid  to  these  personal 
claims  of  his.  The  Duke  of  York  fought 
Henry  VI,  ultimately  supplanted  him,  and 
was    supported    by   a  considerable   body  of 


176        WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

the  great  nobles  simply  as  the  head  of  a 
faction;  and  the  King  himself,  Henry  VI, 
though  enjoying  actual  kingship  at  first  and 
the  traditional  rights  of  a  fathq:  and  grand- 
father who  had  both  reigned,  was  himself 
little  more  than  the  head  of  an  opposing 
faction  calling  itself  Lancastrian,  and  hoping, 
just  as  its  opponents  did,  for  material  profit 
as  the  result  of  Civil  War. 


i 


With  these  premises  we  can  open  the  sto: 
of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  in  1450,  just  half  a 
century  after  the  Lancastrian  usurpation  had 
transformed  the  medieval  society  of  England. 
We  shall  find  the  wars  very  different  from 
those  we  have  previously  examined  :  castles 
held  by  the  great  nobles  virtually  as  private 
property;  now  one  king  and  now  another 
dependent  upon  the  personal  service  of  such 
men;  the  motives  of  action  often  no  more 
than  personal  reprisals  for  personal  injuries; 
and  the  whole  business  thick  with  sudden 
treasons,  changes  from  side  to  side,  the 
melting  away  of  great  levies  whose  few  lords 
suddenly  refused  to  support  the  cause  for 
which  they  had  come  into  the  field;  and,  in 
consequence  of  all  these  features,  a  see-saw 
of  power  which  is  not  settled  until  the  whole 
matter  is  resolved  at  Bosworth. 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  177 

The  First  Phase  (1452-1461). 

The  first  phase  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  is 
that  which  begins  with  the  march  of  Henry 
VI  and  his  supporters  against  the  Duke  of 
York  upon  the  16th  of  February,  1452.  It 
concludes  with  the  great  victory  won  at 
Towton  by  the  Duke  of  York's  son  on  March 
29th,  1461,  and  divides  itself  into  four  clear 
military  episodes  which  I  will  separately 
number. 


The  ikst  of  these  episodes  in  its  complete 
futility  and  odd  personal  calculations  strikes 
at  their  very  outset  the  note  which  was  to 
mark  all  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  But  futile 
as  it  is  and  short,  certain  of  the  main  elements 
of  which  is  to  follow  are  already  apparent, 
and  the  first  of  these  is  that  perpetually 
recurrent  element  in  English  military  history, 
the  recruiting  power  and  the  differentiation 
from  the  south  and  east  of  the  Welsh  marches. 
It  is  to  the  Welsh  marches  the  Duke  of  York 
sent  his  letters  asking  for  a  levy  wherewith 
to  attack  not  the  Crown  but  the  evil  advisers 
of  the  Crown,  and  in  particular  Somerset,  the 
King's  Lancastrian  cousin  against  whom, 
since  his  recent  loss  of  Normandy,  so  large  a 

M 


178        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

body  of  English  opinion  had  arisen.     That 
letter  was  sent  first  upon  the  3rd  of  February 


h4oltehim 
(4) 


® 


4/® 


< ^-.-V®  /d  ■"x 


jr^/b^jr. 


®"\ 


j^  The  Yorkist  movements,  Isf,  2nd  and  Zrd  epi- 

'^ sodes  respectively . 

*"  TTie  Lancastrian  movements,  1st,  2nd  and  3rd 
efpisodes. 
Note  how  the  Lancastrians  move  irom,  the  Yorkists  against 
London. 

to  the  men  of  Shrewsbury,  and  in  a  few  days, 
having  gathered  an  army,  the  Duke  of  York, 
who,  as  descended  from  the  Mortimers,  was 
powerful  in  the  Severn  Valley,  marched  on 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  179 

London.  Henry,  accompanied  by  Somerset, 
upon  the  16th  of  February,  as  I  have  said, 
went  out  to  meet  him,  but  York  had  no  in- 
tention of  an  action.  His  intention  was  much 
more  to  throw  himself  upon  his  undoubted 
popularity  in  London  —  and  what  London 
meant  in  medieval  warfare  I  have  already 
sufficiently  emphasised. 

Henry,  however,  was  King.  He  com- 
manded such  regular  garrison  as  London  had. 
York  found  the  gates  shut  against  him.  He 
proceeded  south  of  the  city  into  Kent  and, 
in  this  same  month  of  February,  still  had 
round  him  something  like  17,000  men  when  he 
reached  Dartford. 

York's  reason  for  avoiding  the  King  and 
slipping  south  of  him,  on  this  eastward  march 
of  February  1452,  was  simple  enough  :  the 
Royal  army  was  far  larger  than  his  own.  It 
followed  him  up,  encamped  on  Blackheath, 
and  with  the  two  main  forces  thus  facing  each 
other,  each  astraddle  of  the  great  Roman  road 
from  the  coast  to  London  and  a  short  day's 
march  apart,  the  bishops  intervened ;  a  truce 
was  arranged  and  the  first  military  episode 
of  the  struggle  (if  we  can  call  that  military  in 
which  no  military  end  is  served)  came  to  a  con- 
clusion.    It  had  lasted  less  than  three  weeks. 

It   is    probable   that    York   had   expected 


180        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

popular  levies  to  join  him  from  the  interior 
of  Kent.  Disaffection  against  the  Crown  had 
been  so  violent  in  that  county  as  to  lead  not 
two  years  before  to  Jack  Cade's  rebellion, 
but  it  was  probably  the  very  failure  and 
chastisement  of  that  rebellion  which  prevented 
Kent  from  supporting  the  Duke  of  York's 
claims  and  convinced  him  of  the  wisdom  of 
treating.  He  consented  to  disband  his  army 
on  condition  that  he  was  allowed  to  present 
his  grievances  (and  those,  as  he  claimed,  of 
the  whole  nation)  against  Somerset,  princi- 
pally for  the  loss  of  France.  That  first  short 
episode  was  of  no  effect  military  or  political, 
save  that  York  was  now  the  armed  leader 
and  acknowledged,  of  the  dissentients,  and 
that  the  King  had  proved  himself  unwilling 
or  incapable  of  crushing  them.  It  had  also 
this  disastrous  effect,  that  to  reprieve  the 
prestige  of  the  Lancastrian  house  an  expedi- 
tion was  sent  into  the  south  of  France,  with 
the  sole  effect  of  losing  to  the  English  Crown 
such  territories  as  it  still  there  retained. 

II 

The  second  episode  of  this  first  phase  of  the 
wars  was  occasioned  directly  by  a  calamity 
which  had  threatened  the  Lancastrian  party 
more  than  once,  and  which  now  fell  suddenly 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  181 

upon  them.  The  King  fell  into  a  sort  of 
paralytic  imbecility  in  the  autumn  following 
the  last  disgraces  in  France. 

Signs  of  the  trouble  had  appeared  in  the 
summer  of  that  year  1453,  and  as  the  year 
proceeded  it  was  evident  that  Henry  VI  was 
no  longer  competent  to  govern.  He  came 
through  his  mother  of  the  mad  French  blood 
of  old  King  Charles ;  in  body  as  in  mind  he 
had  always  been  weak ;  and  here,  now  just 
at  the  close  of  his  thirty-second  year,  the 
inherited  curse  had  fallen  upon  him. 

Almost  coincidently  with  this  disaster,  upon 
the  12th  of  October,  1453,  that  powerful, 
brave,  unpopular  woman,  Margaret  of  Anjou, 
the  Queen,  bore  Henry  an  heir  to  the  throne 
who  was  to  be  known  under  the  title  of 
Edward,  Prince  of  Wales.  That  birth  only 
meant  further  misfortune.  Under  the  circum- 
stances of  his  father's  health,  the  legitimacy 
of  the  child  was  doubted  among  the  populace, 
while  to  the  Duke  of  York  it  meant  a  necessary 
change  of  policy.  To  aspire  to  the  guardian- 
ship of  a  childless  King  was  one  thing  :  with 
an  heir  born  to  the  throne  and  acknowledged 
by  Parliament  mere  guardianship  of  the  King 
meant  very  little.  True,  the  King's  break- 
down made  it  necessary  to  call  the  Duke  of 
York  again  into  the  councils  of  the  Govern- 


182        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

merit,  but  once  there  the  Duke  of  York's 
ambition  was  no  longer  the  control  of  the 
Crown,  but  the  Crown  itself.  His  influence 
in  the  council  was  immediate.  Somerset  was 
imprisoned  at  the  end  of  the  year ;  by  March, 
1454,  the  peers  declared  him  Protector  and 
Defender  of  the  Realm.  He  at  once  filled  the 
great  offices  of  State  with  his  party,  put  his 
brother-in-law,  Salisbury,  into  the  Chancellor- 
ship, and,  while  he  kept  Somerset  in  prison, 
proceeded  to  confirm  his  power  on  every  side. 
It  is  important  to  note  that  York  was  practi- 
cally King  of  England,  though  without  the 
title  of  King,  for  very  nearly  two  years.  It 
explains  his  attitude  and  the  support  he 
received  in  the  immediate  future. 

At  the  end  of  1455,  the  King  recovered  his 
reason,  declared  the  Protectorate  of  York  at 
an  end,  and  on  the  6th  of  March  following 
gave  the  governorship  of  Calais  (which  York 
had  declared  himself  the  governor  of)  to 
Somerset,  whom  he  released.  On  the  7th  he 
dismissed  Salisbury  from  the  Chancellorship, 
and  attempted  to  reconcile  the  factions  by 
promising  a  decision  under  arbitration. 

The  Duke  of  York  met  this  political  crisis 
in  military  fashion.  He  at  once  went  north, 
joining  his  brother-in-law  Salisbury  and  that 
brother-in-law's  son,  his  own  nephew,  Warwick 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  183 

(whom  later  they  called  the  "  king-maker  "), 

levied  quite  a  small  force  of  3000  or  4000  men, 

and  on  the  21st  of  May,  hovering  rather  more 

than  a  day's  march  north  of  London  with  his 

force,  wrote  to  the  King  saying  that  while  he 

was  loyal  to  the  Crown  he  must  secure  his  own 

safety    against    Somerset.     That    letter    was 

probably   intercepted.     At   any   rate   Henry 

marched  out  with  a  quite  insufficient  body 

of  some  2000  men  up  the  Edgware  Road. 

Somerset  was  with  him.     In  a  skirmish  of 

perhaps  half  an  hour,  York  had  forced   the 

streets  of  the  little  town,  killed  Somerset  and 

a  handful  of  others,  and  captured  the  person 

of  the  King  himself,  whom  he  found   in  a 

tanner's  house   wounded  in  the  neck  by  an 

arrow.     After   that   success   York   continued 

his  march  upon  London,  bearing  the  King 

with  him,  and  after  negotiations  which  do  not 

concern  us  was  again  Protector  of  the  Realm, 

with   Salisbury  as   Chancellor  and  Warwick 

as  governor  of  Calais.     The  importance  of  that 

second  appointmentj^will  soon  be  seen.     So 

ended  the  second  episode  in  the  first  phase 

of  the  war. 

Ill 

The  third  phase  of  the  war  is  like  the  first, 
a  completely  futile  series  of  military  opera- 


184        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

tions  with  no  military  conclusion.  Though 
York  had  re-established  his  power  in  London 
he  had,  now  Somerset  was  dead,  no  direct 
complaint  to  make  against  a  particular  evil 
counsellor.  His  claim  became  frankly  per- 
sonal, and  aimed  at  Henry's  removal :  he 
was  therefore  opposed  by  the  energy  and 
determination  of  the  Queen. 

The  King  soon  recovered  through  her  ability 
his  full  ruling  power,  but  he  kept  Warwick 
in  Calais,  while  York  remained  in  London — 
too  powerful  for  a  subject,  and  particularly 
for  a  subject  out  of  office. 

The  breaking  point  came  in  the  autumn  of 
1459.  Salisbury  gathered  5000  men  at  Middle- 
ham  in  Wensleydale,  just  under  the  Pennines, 
and  started  off  to  march  round  those  hills  to 
the  Welsh  marches,  where  York  awaited  him 
at  Ludlow.  Ostensibly  that  meeting  was 
merely  arranged  in  order  that  York  and 
Salisbury  should  present  their  claims  to  the 
King,  but  Salisbury  had  an  armed  force  in 
the  field  and,  though  he  was  not  openly 
marching  against  the  King,  the  Queen  made 
her  husband  issue  a  warrant  for  his  arrest. 
She  gave  the  dangerous  task  of  executing  it 
to  Lord  Audley.  He  intercepted  Salisbury's 
march  westward  when  that  commander  had 
just  crossed  the  Dove  and  was  at  Blore  Heath 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  185 

in  Staffordshire.  Salisbury  defeated  and  killed 
Audley  on  the  23rd  of  September  and  made 
his  way  to  Ludlow.  But  when  Salisbury  had 
there  effected  his  junction  with  the  Duke  of 
York  the  two,  still  pretending  no  more  than 
an  interview  with  the  King,  found  the  Royal 
army  not  only  too  strong  for  them,  but  attract- 
ing to  its  side  certain  veterans  of  the  French 
wars  whom  the  Yorkists  had  engaged.  The 
King  stood  with  his  large  force  in  that  bend 
of  the  river  south  of  Ludlow  which  lies 
between  Vinnall  Hill  and  Tinkers  Hill.  Salis- 
bury and  York  were  within  the  town  itself 
and  round  the  castle,  with  Warwick  also, 
Salisbury's  son.  After  the  defection  of  the 
French  veterans  they  had  no  choice  but  to 
disband  their  forces  and  fly,  York  to  L-eland, 
Salisbury  and  his  son  Warwick  by  sea  to 
Calais.  Such  was  the  inglorious  and  some- 
what ludicrous  conclusion  in  the  autumn  of 
1459  of  the  third  episode  in  the  first  phase  of 
the  war. 

The  fourth  and  final  episode  was  to  be  a 
very  different  matter. 


IV 

Warwick    had   been    permitted   to   retain 
commandership  of  Calais  and  the  command 


186        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

of  the  fleet  until  this  last  quarrel,  for  it  had  | 
always  been  in  the  mind  of  the  Court  to 
temporise  with  the  Yorkist  party.  He  was 
now  by  royal  command  deprived  of  both. 
And  Somerset,  the  son  of  York's  old  enemy, 
was  sent  to  take  possession  of  Calais.  Warwick 
refused  to  give  up  the  town.  Somerset's 
ships  deserted  to  him;  Warwick  sailed  to 
Dublin  to  discuss  matters  with  the  Duke 
of  York,  came  back  to  Calais,  crossed  the 
Channel,  landed  in  Kent  with  only  1500  men, 
gathered  levies  which  multiplied  that  number 
at  least  by  twenty  and  perhaps  by  thirty,  was 
received  very  favourably  by  London,  which 
threw  open  its  gates  to  him,  and  promptly 
marched  against  the  King,  who  had  entrenched 
himself  at  Northampton. 

It  was  a  swift  move.  The  landing  in 
Kent  had  been  on  the  26th  of  June,  1460, 
London  was  occupied  exactly  a  week  later, 
and  a  first  action  at  Northampton  was  fought 
on  the  10th  of  July,  a  week  later  again. 
Warwick  and  his  large  force  were  completely 
successful.  The  King  was  taken  and  brought 
back  to  London  by  Warwick,  the  Queen  fled 
to  Scotland,  the  Duke  of  York  returned  to 
London,  and  at  last  openly  claimed  the  throne. 

But  the  revolution  was  too  violent  to  be 
as  yet  accepted.     A  compromise  was  drawn 


1 


V    \ 

i  .^ 

■'\/    .. 

\\\ 

w  \\ 

Mortimen  \ 

"^v.    ■■■■''^.•:..  \        \   \J      \         'v. 

\.         '''''■'-■■'-.■.:,.^^^'''^"'g^f^!fr,  \       -^      \\.^  \       \\  ^ 

-^^  " ~--5>t 

^       The  Lancastrian  march  and  counter-march. 

^       The  Yorkist  marches. 

.•.•;::~.:u:r.v.v.-.r.v::::>       Touvg  Edward's  march  finally  establishing  the 
House  of  York  by  the  Battle  of  Towton. 

THK  FOURTH  EPISODE 

Note  how  the  Yorkists  in  this  last  episode  depend  on  London. 


188        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

up  on  the  25th  of  October  whereby  Henry 
waived  the  rights  of  his  Httle  son,  and  per- 
mitted York  and  his  heirs  to  succeed  after 
his  death.  All  that  was  settled  by  the  end 
of  October.  Before  the  end  of  December,  to 
be  accurate,  on  the  29th  of  that  month,  York, 
marching  north  to  meet  forces  which  Margaret 
had  raised  from  her  refuge  in  Scotland,  was 
defeated  and  killed  at  Wakefield. 

The  sequel  of  this  great  victory  was  as 
curious  as  it  is  memorable.  It  should  almost 
naturally  have  followed  with  the  Pretender 
killed,  with  a  Royalist  army  wholly  victorious, 
that  the  wars  should  have  come  to  an  end, 
and  should  have  been  decided  in  favour  of 
Lancaster.  The  exact  contrary  happened, 
because,  instead  of  two  regular  forces  being 
organised  to  meet  each  other,  every  battle 
was  a  shock  of  loosely  coherent  levies  fighting 
much  more  as  followers  of  individual  lords 
who  followed  an  interest,  not  a  cause,  than 
as  soldiers  of  a  united  force. 

Not  only  York  but  Salisbury,  his  brother- 
in-law,  had  fallen  at  Wakefield.  Of  the  trio 
that  had  hitherto  worked  together,  Warwick 
only  was  left. 

In  spite  of  the  defeat  of  the  main  army 
under  his  father  and  uncle,  Warwick  set  out 
from  London  with  the  King  in  his  custody. 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  189 

And  here  we  must  note  one  element  that  made 
for  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  Yorkists  after 
this  discomfiture  :  they  were  still  the  more 
military  body  of  the  two  loosely  organised 
opponents.  It  took  the  Queen  nearly  two 
months  to  cover  the  150  odd  miles  between 
Wakefield  and  St.  Albans,  a  distance  easily 
coverable  in  a  fortnight  and,  with  some  need 
for  haste,  possible  in  ten  days.  Nevertheless, 
with  her  enormous  superiority  of  forces  she 
not  only  beat  off  Warwick  at  St.  Albans 
on  the  17th  of  February,  but  recaptured  the 
King. 

Exactly  a  fortnight  before,  the  Duke  of 
York's  son  and  heir,  another  Edward,  a  boy 
of  twenty,  determined  to  recover  even  against 
such  odds  the  terrible  blow  of  Wakefield  and 
his  father  and  his  uncle's  death.  He  gathered 
an  army  from  Gloucester,  beat  off  a  local 
Royalist  advance  made  against  him  from 
Wales  and  defeated  it  at  Mortimer's  Cross, 
marched  rapidly  across  England,  met  Warwick 
(who  had  fallen  back  after  his  defeat)  at 
Chipping  Norton,  and  marched  with  such 
speed  that  he  held  London  by  the  end  of  the 
month,  while  the  amazing  truth  is — possible 
only  to  such  a  war  as  that  of  the  Roses — that 
Queen  Margaret  and  King  Henry  had  remained 
for  eleven  days  within  striking  distance  of  the 


190        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

capital  without  attempting  to  enter  it.  They 
had  feared  lest  their  ill-disciplined  levies  should 
loot  the  place  and  alienate  that  public  feeling 
which  throughout  English  history  made  of 
London  so  formidable  a  military  factor. 

Once  the  new  young  Duke  of  York  had 
London  he  had  everything.  Within  the  week 
of  his  arrival  he  was  acknowledged  King. 
Such  was  the  character  of  the  Queen's  army 
that,  in  spite  of  its  two  recent  victories,  she 
thought  she  had  no  choice  but  to  retreat. 
Young  Edward  followed  right  up  England, 
marching  almost  as  rapidly  as  Harold  had 
marched,  and  on  the  29th  of  March  he  utterlv 
destroyed  his  enemies  two  hours  south  and 
west  of  York  City  on  Towton  Field.  It  was 
an  action  won  by  sheer  pressure,  through  a 
dense  snowstorm,  for  nine  hours,  from  nine  in 
the  morning  to  six  in  the  afternoon,  ending 
in  the  pushing  back  of  Lancastrians  against 
the  River  Cock,  and  a  pursuit  and  slaughter 
of  them  in  which  half  of  their  whole  great 
host  perished.  Somerset  had  the  luck  to  ride 
off  to  York.  He  took  the  King  with  him, 
but  as  a  fugitive ;  and  with  this  decisive  action, 
a  Sunday  battle,  ended  the  first  and  by  far  the 
most  confused  phase  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 

The  remaining  two,  as  we  shall  see,  were 
brief  and  clear  campaigns 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  191 

The  Second  Phase. 

After  the  decisive  action  at  Towton  had 
made  of  Edward  IV  a  King  and  of  Henry 
VI  a  fugitive,  the  suppression  of  anti- Yorkist 
risings,  especially  in  the  north,  are  the  only 
military  incidents  in  an  interval  of  ten  years. 
Neglecting  the  political  history  of  that  interval, 
the  quarrel  with  Warwick,  much  the  ablest 
soldier  of  his  time,  with  his  master  and  cousin, 
the  temporary  imprisonment  of  Edward  and 
the  equally  temporary  restoration  of  Henry, 
the  next  distinct  phase  of  the  Wars  of  the 
Roses  falls  in  the  year  1471,  and  maybe  called 
the  Campaign  of  Bar  net. 

The  elements  of  that  campaign  were  as 
follows  : — 

Henry,  under  the  tutelage  of  Warwick,  was 
nominally  the  acting  king  in  England. 
Edward  was  an  exile  upon  the  Continent. 
In  the  early  part  of  the  year,  1471,  Edward 
raised  money  privately  from  his  brother-in- 
law,  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  with  a  fleet 
of  eighteen  vessels  which  can  have  conveyed 
but  a  very  small  force  ^  he  sailed  from  Flushing. 
He  made  right  across  for  the  Suffolk  coast, 
but  the  vessels  were  seen.  He  feared  opposi- 
tion and  sailed  northward,  putting  at  last, 

^  He  is  credited  at  the  most  with  1500 


192        WARFARE   IN   ENGLAND 

under  stress  of  weather,  into  the  Humber.  He 
landed  where  Henry  of  Lancaster  had  landed 
more  than  eighty  years  before,  at  Ravenspur, 
now  under  water,  just  inside  Spurn  Head, 
in  the  mouth  of  the  Humber,  on  the  14th  of 
March,  1471,  and  marched  to  York  under  the 
pretence  that  he  merely  came  to  claim  his 
estates,  while  he  gave  orders  to  his  little  force 
to  cheer  for  King  Henry.  On  the  day  when 
he  reached  and  rested  at  York,  he  still  acknow- 
ledged Henry's  sovereignty  and  the  right  of 
the  Prince  of  Wales  to  inherit. 

He  set  out  from  York  for  the  south. 

There  is,  as  the  reader  will  remember  from 
the  introductory  chapter  of  this  brief  survey  of 
our  military  topography,  a  strategical  point 
of  capital  importance  in  the  line  of  advance 
from  the  north  upon  London.  This  strategical 
point  is  Pontefract.  We  saw  it  to  be  im- 
portant because  its  situation  and  stronghold 
commanded  the  passage  of  the  River  Aire. 
Both  the  Roman  road  to  York  which  bridges 
that  obstacle  at  Castleford  and  the  alternative 
and  parallel  road  somewhat  to  the  east,  which 
crosses  it  at  Ferrybridge,  are  commanded  by 
any  force  that  may  be  lying  at  Pontefract. 
It  is  an  hour's  march  to  the  one  crossing 
and  half  an  hour's  to  the  other,  while  both 
can  be  simultaneously  watched  by  any  force 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  193 

holding  the  castle  and  the  town,  as  we  have 
previously  seen. 

Moreover,  as  we  have  also  seen,  the  obstacle 
of  the  Aire  here  blocks  the  narrowest  passage 
between  the  Pennines  and  the  Fens.  At 
Pontefract,  two  days'  march  south  of  York,  lay 
Montague  with  a  force  that  could  not  only  have 


Vifeymajfh 


0 


Ponfefrxt 


■"1^    y'ht  tteasonable  mareft  of  Oarenee.  <u/enfO>ly  L»nojLSlt-ian 
■■^     then  turning  Yorkist. 


L»ncA3trian  fjoaihon  and  ma.reti 
The  treasonatle  mare/t  of  Oarenee. 
then  turning  Yorhist. 
— .......^  Ec/manta' iDSwchej.  first  to  London  than  lb  Tertheabury 

THE  SECOND  PHASE  OF  THE  WAR  OF  THE  ROSES   Barnet  5  Tevrkesbury. 

prevented  Edward's   further  progress  south, 
but  could  have  destroyed  his  little  army, 

Edward  crossed  the  river  not  four  miles 
from  the  position  of  that  hostile  command, 
marched  south  right  across  its  front,  and  no 
opposition  was  offered  him  !  He  made  along 
the  great  London  road  due  south  for  Notting- 
ham, and  in  the  fifty  odd  miles'  marching,  now 

N 


194        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

at  last  through  country  that  was  more  favour- 
able to  his  cause,  he  gathered  one  contingent 
after  another  until,  upon  reaching  Nottingham 
itself,  he  found  himself  at  the  head  of  7000 
men,  and  at  last  declared  himself  King. 

Now  in  all  this  there  is  no  element  of 
strategy.  The  invader  comes  with  a  handful 
of  men,  receives  at  first  no  recruitment, 
marches  through  a  country  upon  the  whole 
hostile  to  his  claims,  and  the  obvious  solution 
of  such  a  position  would  be  the  fixing  of  that 
small  force  by  whatever  large  levies  the  forces 
of  the  Crown  could  gather,  and  its  destruction. 

Nothing  of  the  kind  was  attempted.  No 
force  at  all,  large  or  small,  blocked  York's  little  | 
command,  and  in  its  progress  southward  he  is 
allowed  to  pass  Pontefract,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  increase  his  force,  and  to  reach  Nottingham ; 
and  this  absurdly  unmilitary  situation  must 
be  explained,  like  so  many  of  the  grotesque 
anomalies  of  these  wars,  in  a  manner  purely 
political  and  personal. 

The  explanation  is  this.  When  Warwick 
had  quarrelled  with  Edward  IV,  driven 
him  out  and  restored  Henry,  Edward's  own 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Clarence,  had  been 
involved  in  the  quarrel  and  had  suffered  as 
a  partisan  of  Warwick's.  He  still  publicly 
counted  as  Warwick's  ally  and  Henry's,  but 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  195 

secretly  he  had  determined  to  return  to  his 
brother's  allegiance — and  Edward  knew  it. 
With  a  commission  from  Henry,  Clarence  had 
raised  a  considerable  force.  That  force  was 
marching  up  from  the  south,  ostensibly  in 
Henry's  cause,  to  join  Warwick  near  Coventry. 
Clarence  had  urged  Warwick,  and  through  him 
the  other  Royalist  commands  that  might 
have  blocked  Edward's  progress,  to  do  nothing 
until  he,  Clarence,  should  have  arrived  with 
his  great  reinforcement. 

Here,  then,  were  three  bodies  all  converging 
upon  the  neighbourhood  of  Coventry :  (1) 
Warwick's  command  which  already  lay  in  that 
neighbourhood;  (2)  Edward's  7000  hostile  to 
it,  which  was  approaching  from  Nottingham 
and  the  north;  (3)  Clarence's,  the  largest 
force,  nominally  marching  up  from  the  south 
to  effect  a  junction  with  Warwick,  but  really 
designing  to  effect  a  junction  with  Edward, 
his  enemy.  Warwick,  still  trusting  in 
Clarence's  good  faith,  remained  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Coventry,  and  allowed  Edward 
to  pass  in  front  of  him  unmolested ;  Clarence 
effected  his  junction  with  Edward,  and  this 
double  force  of  the  Yorkists  lay  next  day  at 
the  town  of  Warwick,  between  Coventry  and 
London,  and  with  nothing  to  prevent  Edward's 
final  marches  upon  the  capital. 


196        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

To  gain  London  now,  as  always  through 
the  Middle  Ages,  was  to  gain  the  chief  military 
asset  in  the  kingdom.  Edward  entered  the 
city  with  a  very  large  force  now  under  his 
orders,  upon  the  11th  of  April,  Maundy 
Thursday.  Undoubtedly  the  populace  was 
Yorkist,  but  apart  from  that  certain  of  the 
great  political  officers  in  the  city  had  taken 
up  Edward's  cause. 

Insufficient  though  his  forces  were,  Warwick 
marched  south  at  once  when  he  saw  how 
Clarence  had  betrayed  him.  Edward  spent 
Good  Friday  in  London.  On  the  morrow, 
Saturday,  he  proceeded  out  of  London  one 
day's  march  by  the  alternative  road  to  St. 
Albans,  having  King  Henry  with  him  as 
prisoner.  Warwick  had  advanced  with  such 
speed  that  he  had  passed  St.  Albans  already ; 
and  on  Easter  Sunday,  April  14,  exactly  a 
month  after  Edward's  landing  in  York,  the 
shock  between  the  two  armies  took  place  near 
Chipping  Barnet.  Warwick's  command  was 
destroyed,  and  Warwick  himself  killed.  It  was 
this  action  at  Barnet  which  was  the  single 
decisive  blow  of  this  short  campaign,  on  which 
account  it  should  bear  the  title  of  that  battle. 

Edward  had  indeed  two  other  difficulties 
to  deal  with,  but  they  were  easily  surmounted. 

On    that    same    Easter    Sunday,    Henry's 


MEDIEVAL   WARFARE  197 

Queen  had  landed  at  Weymouth  with  the 
Prince  of  Wales.  Her  force,  though  large, 
hardly  merited  the  name  of  an  army,  so  loose 
was  it.  Edward,  marching  west,  at  once 
intercepted  it  at  Tewkesbury,  and  destroyed 
it  in  its  turn  by  a  victory  in  which  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  among  others,  was  killed.  This 
success  was  won  upon  the  4th  of  May.  Upon 
the  5th,  a  cousin  of  Warwick's,  still  in  com- 
mand of  a  fleet,  landed  in  Kent  with  a  con- 
siderable force  and  marched  on  London.  He 
was  refused  an  entry,  passed  up  west  to  inter- 
cept the  return  of  Edward  from  the  Severn 
Valley,  but  whether  from  a  promise  of  personal 
pardon,  or  disheartened  by  the  news  of 
Tewkesbury  which  had  just  reached  him,  he 
abandoned  his  command ;  and  on  the  21st  of 
May  Edward  re-entered  London  at  the  head 
of  30,000  men,  and  the  second  phase  in  the 
Wars  of  the  Roses  was  closed.  The  same 
night  in  the  Tower,  the  pawn  of  all  these 
years  of  fighting,  Henry  VI,  may  have  been 
murdered,  and  certainly  died. 


The  Third  Phase. 

The  third  and  last  phase  of  the  Wars  of  the 
Roses  is  even  briefer  and  more  decisive  than 
the  second.     For  fourteen  years    the  House 


198        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

of  York  had  been  secure.  Upon  Edward 
IV's  death  his  brother  Richard  usurped  the 
throne.  At  the  head  of  those  who  still  main- 
tained the  Lancastrian  claim  was  a  young  man 
of  twenty-seven,  one  Henry  Tudor,  who  from 
his  exile  first  in  Brittany,  then  at  the  Court 
of  France,  still  planned  the  overthrow  of 
the  reigning  house.  His  claim  to  the  throne 
was  absurd,  or  rather  non-existent.  He  was 
descended  from  a  line  of  Welsh  squires  on  his 
father's  side,  and  though  on  his  mother's  he 
could  trace  his  descent  from  John  of  Gaunt 
it  was  by  a  branch  at  once  illegitimate  and 
specifically  barred  from  inheritance.  But 
while  his  claim  by  any  theory  of  medieval 
kingship  was  negligible,  his  moral  right  to  lead 
the  continued  protest  against  the  House  of 
York  was  very  strong,  for  his  father,  Jasper 
Tudor,  who  had  been  made  Earl  of  Richmond, 
was  half-brother  to  Henry  VI,  the  son  by 
her  second  marriage  of  that  French  princess 
whom  Henry  V  had  married  to  complete 
his  conquest  of  France.  In  social  fact,  if  not 
in  feudal  theory,  he  had  lived  the  life  and 
occupied  the  position  of  nephew  to  Henry 
VI;  and  all  the  forces  of  rebellion  and  dis- 
content, to  which  upon  the  close  of  those 
fourteen  years  the  supposed  or  real  crimes 
of    Richard    III    added    increasing   weight, 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  199 

would  follow  Henry  when  he  should  attempt 
the  throne,  more  loyally  and  more  cohesively 
than  the  Lancastrians  had  yet  been  followed. 
The  campaign  in  which  Henry  established 
himself  upon  the  throne  of  England,  and 
closed  at  once  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  and  of 
medieval  warfare    in  England,  is  much  the 

Stafford  Nofhngham 

'^  "^a-mworth  / 

Shr^wiJbury.''  \  / 

_.•••■'*  '""  Atherstane^'-yx<b-»  Leicester 

Bosmrlh 


■  ■>     Henry  V//j  March 
•^-      Richard  M 


■  THIRD    PHASE  OF  THE  WAR  OF  THE  ROSES 

simplest  and  most  direct  sort  to  follow,  and 
occupied  but  three  weeks  from  beginning  to 
end. 

It  was  upon  the  1st  of  August,  1485,  that 
Henry  sailed  from  Harfleur  in  the  mouth  of  the 
Seine,  a  port  of  good  augury  to  one  who  bore 
the  name  and  continued  the  tradition  of  the 
victor  of  Agincourt.  He  had  with  him  but 
3000  men,  very  few  of  them  English,  most 
of  them  Norman. 


200        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

Richard  III  was  an  excellent  soldier.  He 
organised  a  system  of  intelligence  far  superior 
to  any  that  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  had  yet 
seen,  with  posts  of  cavalry  dotted  along  the 
south  to  warn  him  of  the  approach  of  his 
enemy  or  of  his  return,  and  he  at  once  dis- 
patched a  fleet  to  intercept  that  enemy  in  the 
Channel.  Henry's  fleet  slipped  past  the  ships 
that  were  looking  for  it,  cruised  for  six  days 
in  the  light  weather  round  the  longships  and 
across  the  mouth  of  the  Bristol  Channel,  and 
it  was  not  until  Sunday,  the  7th  of  August, 
that  the  small  but  well  organised  command 
disembarked  at  Milford  Haven. 

At  this  point  it  is  essential  to  consider  yet 
another  of  those  personal  factors  which  are  so 
important  throughout  the  whole  length  of 
these  conflicts,  from  the  first  claims  of  the 
Duke  of  York,  thirty-five  years  before,  to  this 
last  and  successful  assault  upon  the  throne. 

A  man  powerful  as  a  leader  and  commanding 
considerable  resources  of  men  and  fortune. 
Lord  Stanley  had  married  young  Henry's 
mother,  who  was  a  widow.  His  brother,  Sir 
William  Stanley,  had  the  command  of  the 
forces  in  Wales.  It  is  part  of  the  complexity 
of  the  situation  that  both  these  men  were 
high  in  the  service  of  Richard  III,  but 
their   connection  with  the   invader   through 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  201 

the  marriage  of  his  mother  caused  Richard 
an  anxiety  for  which  he  has  been  blamed,  but 
which,  in  the  event,  proved  justified.  It  was 
increased  when  Lord  Stanley,  a  little  before 
the  invasion  of  his  stepson,  asked  leave  to 
visit  his  estates  in  Cheshire  and  in  Lancashire. 
Richard  consented  to  his  withdrawal  from 
Court  for  that  moment,  but  retained  his  son. 
Lord  Strange,  as  a  sort  of  hostage  against  his 
good  behaviour. 

It  was  the  action  which  Stanley  took  in  the 
events  immediately  following  the  invasion 
that  determined  the  results  of  it.  The 
moment  Richard  heard  of  Henry's  landing 
(which  was  not  until  a  week  after  it  had 
happened),  he  sent  at  once  for  Stanley,  but 
Stanley  replied  that  he  was  ill  and  could  not 
come.  Richard,  more  certain  than  ever  that 
he  was  betrayed  by  this,  his  chief  military 
subordinate,  caused  Lord  Strange,  who  had 
in  part  admitted  the  treason,  to  write  to  his 
father  and  urge  him  to  come  and  join  the  King 
if  he  wished  to  save  his  son's  life. 

Having  done  this,  Richard  gathered  a  well 
disciplined  and  considerable  force  and  marched 
for  Nottingham.  He  had  shown  at  once  his 
soldierly  aptitude  in  thus  making  for  the 
Midlands.  He  was  in  a  post  of  observation^ 
as   it  were,  from  which,  with  a  disaffected 


202        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

country  behind  him  and  the  consequent 
difficulty  of  organising  his  intelHgence,  he 
could  watch  the  advance  of  the  invader  from 
whatever  quarter  it  might  proceed.  He  was 
also  in  a  central  position  upon  which  the  levies 
that  he  had  summoned  might  most  quickly 
converge  from  the  extremities  of  the  island ; 
and  Northampton  from  York  and  beyond, 
Norfolk  from  East  Anglia,  Howard  from  the 
south  joined  him  with  their  several  levies. 

Meanwhile,  the  invader  Henry  had  marched 
up  from  Milford  to  North  Wales.  William 
Stanley  had  joined  him  with  his  command. 
He  debouched  from  the  mountains  on  to  the 
plains  of  the  Upper  Severn,  crossed  that  river 
at  Shrewsbury,  and  struck  straight  for  the 
Midlands  where  Richard  was  awaiting  him. 
Two  days'  marches  on,  at  Newport,  on  the 
boundary  of  Staffordshire,  Talbot  joined  him 
with  a  levy  of  his  tenantry.  At  Stafford,  the 
end  of  the  third  day's  march  in  the  open 
country,  Henry  made  his  private  agreement 
with  the  Stanleys.  In  order  to  save  the  life 
of  Lord  Strange,  the  hostage,  Stanley's 
command  should  not  actually  join  his  own, 
but  should  retire  before  it  as  though  intending 
to  join  Richard  as  it  had  been  summoned  to 
do,  but  that  retirement  was  to  be  a  feint  only. 
At  this  moment,  four  days  before  the  shock, 


MEDIEVAL  WARFARE  203 

the  two  armies  at  Nottingham  and  Stafford 
respectively,  lay  about  forty  miles  apart. 
Richard  marched  down  southward  to  Lei- 
cester, a  matter  of  two  days,  Henry  bending 
somewhat  to  the  south  in  his  turn  (the  news 
of  Richard's  southern  march  having  reached 
him  at  least  a  day  after  it  took  place),  pressed 
forward,  and  in  two  days  was  at  Tam worth, 
just  off  the  Wathng  Street.  He  reached  that 
town  upon  Sunday,  the  21st  of  August. 
During  that  same  Sunday,  Richard  marched 
out  west  from  Leicester,  covered  a  normal 
day's  progress  of  twelve  miles,  and  encamped 
a  couple  of  miles  south  of  Market  Bosworth, 
just  outside  and  to  the  west  of  the  village  of 
Sutton  Cheney.  In  camp  he  lay  that  night 
with  his  army,  but  during  that  same  night 
Henry  marched  along  the  Watling  Street 
through  Atherstone,  where  the  Stanleys  joined 
him,  and  then,  by  what  is  left  of  a  Roman 
side  way  from  the  Watling  Street  to  Leicester, 
he  made  in  the  early  hours  of  the  day  a  trifle 
north  of  east  for  Richard's  position,  two  hours' 
march  from  Atherstone. 

Under  any  circumstances  but  those  which 
characterised  the  whole  of  these  wars,  the 
victory,  when  the  shock  came  upon  that 
morning,  Monday,  the  22nd  of  August,  1485, 
must    have    lain    with    Richard.     He    was 


204        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

nominally  at  the  head  of  a  command  twice 
that  of  his  opponent  in  numbers.  He  was 
certainly  the  better  soldier.  He  had  estab- 
lished among  the  men  immediately  under  his 
order  the  better  discipline.  But  the  now 
apparent  treason  of  the  Stanleys,  who  were 
advancing  to  the  field  joined  to  the  invader, 
and,  what  was  perhaps  more  grave,  the 
deliberate  inaction  of  the  northern  contin- 
gent under  Northumberland,  outweighed  the 
King's  advantage.  More  than  this,  there  was 
in  the  situation  an  element  which  counted 
very  strongly  in  any  medieval  army  con- 
sisting of  separate  levies,  and  that  was  the 
personal  disaffection  of  many  of  the  men 
and  their  leaders.  In  the  result,  therefore, 
Richard's  forces,  such  as  still  held  to  him 
throughout  the  struggle,  were  scattered,  and 
Richard  himself,  in  the  thick  of  the  press, 
fighting  with  a  conspicuous  courage  and  crying, 
"  Treason  !  Treason !  Treason ! "  went  down. 

The  victor  had  accomplished  all  this  so 
early  that  he  could  ride  into  Leicester  in 
triumph  that  same  night;  and  the  Wars  of 
the  Roses  were  done.  There  was  no  further 
struggle  upon  any  scale  worthy  of  strategical 
analysis  and  record  between  great  armed 
bodies  within  the  borders  of  England  until 
the  Civil  Wars  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  205 

CHAPTER   VII 

THE    CIVIL    WARS 

Because  they  were  the  last  piece  of  regular 
warfare  waged  within  the  borders  of  England 
proper,  and  because  they  had  so  momentous 
an  effect  upon  English  society,  destroying 
the  old  popular  centralised  monarchy  and 
replacing  it  by  an  aristocratic  system,  the 
Civil  Wars  take  on,  in  the  eyes  of  EngHsh- 
men,  a  military  importance  at  which  foreigners 
are  apt  to  smile. 

In  other  words,  their  political  meaning  to 
us  is  so  great  that  it  exaggerates  for  us  their 
value  as  a  military  exercise. 

The  numbers  engaged  upon  either  side  of 
the  struggle  were  usually  small.  Skirmishes 
outside  country  houses  are  dignified  by  the 
name  of  sieges;  a  melee  of  a  few  horse  is 
often  called  a  battle,  while  the  lack  of  plan 
and  purpose  in  much  of  the  fighting  makes 
the  general  observer  underrate,  if  anything, 
the  position  of  this  English  episode  in  the 
general  military  history  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  He  thinks  of  it  as  a  sort  of  isolated 
and  petty  event  thrown  up  by  the  general 
commotion  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  and  of 
the   vaster    struggle   which   was   proceeding 


THE   CIVIL   WARS  207 

throughout  Europe  between  central  authority 
and  the  oHgarchie  principle  of  government. 

Small,  however,  as  were  the  numbers 
engaged,  and  amateurish  and  sporadic  as 
was  the  strategy  displayed,  the  military  side 
of  the  Civil  Wars  must  be  grasped  by  any 
one  who  desires  to  understand  the  history  of 
England.  In  their  main  lines  they  illustrate, 
better  than  any  of  the  fighting  since  the 
Norman  invasion,  the  general  strategical 
conditions  of  English  topography,  and  they 
developed  a  really  great  cavalry  commander, 
Cromwell,^  whose  name  counts  high  among 
European  statesmen  of  the  time,  and  to  whose 
initiative  can  be  traced  not  a  few  of  the 
commercial  developments  which  England 
enjoyed  after  his  time. 

In  order  to  grasp  the  strategy  of  the  Civil 
Wars  (which  at  first  sight  appear  to  be  no 
more  than  a  confused  welter  of  marching  and 

^  I  would  not  fall  into  the  pedantry  of  calling  him 
"  Williams,"  though  this  was  of  course  his  real  name,  and 
it  was  as  Oliver  \Villiams  that  he  signed  that  financial 
document  to  which  he  attached  most  importance. 

The  name  Cromwell  had  heen  aiFected  by  his  family  for 
some  years  as  adding  social  distinction  to  the  gigantic 
wealth  which  gave  the  Williams'  their  position  in  the 
Eastern  Counties.  It  was  as  the  cadet  of  this  huge 
fortune  accumulated  from  the  spoils  of  the  Church  that 
Oliver  Cromwell  was  introduced  to  his  great  career  in 
which  we  must  never  forget  that  he  made  another  fortune 
by  combining  military  with  commercial  enterprises. 


208        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

counter-marching  across  the  face  of  England), 
we  must  clearly  seize  that  factor  which  has 
been  so  often  insisted  upon  in  this  book  :  the 
special  military  position  of  London. 

I  will  not  here  recapitulate  the  many  points 
which  the  reader  will  find  in  the  passage  I 
have  devoted  to  this  subject.  It  is  enough 
to  recall  to  him  what  the  preponderance  of 
London  was  in  any  great  struggle  fought  upon 
English  soil,  in  what  way  it  served  as  a  depot, 
recruiting  base,  financial  resource,  nodal  point, 
and  obstacle. 

Now  London  (probably  most  of  its  populace 
and  certainly  its  great  merchants  and  those 
directing  the  organised  life  of  the  capital)  was 
for  the  Parliament.  It  not  only  overshadowed 
and  (as  it  were)  contained  Westminster,  it 
also  furnished  the  revenue  upon  which  the 
Parliament  could  levy  troops.  It  furnished 
in  the  earlier  part  of  the  war  a  considerable 
proportion  of  the  recruitment,  it  served  as  a 
permanent  base  whence  armies  could  proceed 
and  to  which  they  could  retire,  and  it  com- 
manded the  crossing  of  the  Thames  up  to 
sixty  miles  from  the  sea;  it  prevented  any 
combined  action  upon  the  north  and  south 
of  that  river  for  some  miles  eastward  of  its 
own  longitude. 

This   last   point   is   of   capital   importance 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  209 

and  determines  the  whole  scheme  of  the  Civil 
Wars.  Parliament  was  supported  by  London, 
by  Kent,  and  by  East  Anglia. 

Was  there  any  similar  geographical  area 
that  could  be  counted  on  the  side  of  the  King  ? 
There  was  not.  Upon  the  whole  the  Severn 
Valley  and  the  northern  counties  contained, 
among  the  wealthier  classes,  a  larger  pro- 
portion of  Royalists  than  the  rest,  but  with 
the  exception  of  the  undoubted  solidarity 
against  the  King  of  London,  and  of  the  squires 
and  merchants  of  Essex,  Cambridge,  Hunting- 
don, Norfolk,  Suffolk,  and  Kent,  it  is  difficult 
to  establish  a  geographical  basis  for  the 
fighting  that  was  to  follow. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  very  fact  that  London 
and  the  eastern  counties  thus  held  together 
*'  polarised  "  the  war — if  I  may  use  that 
metaphor.  The  very  fact  that  Charles  could 
not  attempt  London  and  the  east  compelled 
him  to  rely  upon  the  west.  The  west  was 
not  wholly  his  by  any  means;  at  the  very 
beginning  of  the  wars  we  have  Worcester, 
cutting  the  Severn  Valley  right  in  two, 
garrisoned  by  the  Parliament :  at  its  critical 
turning-point  Gloucester  on  the  same  side  is 
decisive. 

Any  one  making  a  map  of  the  places  both 
defensible  and  open'which,  in  the  first  months 


210        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

of  the  war,  were  gainsaid  by  Royalist  or 
Parliamentary  forces,  and  marking  the  one 
in  red  and  the  other  in  blue,  would  find  that 
he  had  a  parti-coloured  pattern  everywhere 
save  in  London  and  the  adherent  counties 
which  I  have  mentioned;  but  he  would  find 
the  King's  colour  predominating  on  the  Upper 
Thames,  upon  either  bank  of  the  Severn  and 
north  of  Trent. 

The  most  general  formula,  therefore,  with 
which  we  can  cover  the  story  of  the  English 
Civil  Wars  is  that  they  consisted  upon  the 
whole  in  a  recovery  by  Parliament,  reposing 
upon  London  and  the  east,  of  the  west  and 
north  in  so  far  as  the  west  and  north  had 
been  the  King's. 

The  Civil  War  develops  from  that  moment 
on  January  10,  1642,  when  King  Charles 
left  London  for  York.  There  is  a  preliminary 
period  during  which  the  two  parties  each 
hesitates  to  engage  and  each  "  feels "  the 
situation.  The  first  military  incident  in 
which  the  right  of  the  Crown  to  command  all 
stores,  armed  forces,  etc.,  was  questioned  was 
the  refusal  of  Sir  John  Hotham  to  deliver  the 
magazine  at  Hull  into  the  King's  hands.  This 
refusal  took  place  on  the  23rd  of  April.  By 
June  Englishmen  had  everywhere  before 
them  the  curious  spectacle  of  a  double  recruit- 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  211 

ment  proceeding  in  nearly  every  county;  for 
the  Parliament  under  an  Ordinance  of  Militia, 
issued,  of  course,  without  the  King's  consent ; 
for  the  King  under  a  Commission  of  Array y 
which  was  a  royal  order. 

The  first  actual  blow  struck  was  in  con- 
nection with  the  fortified  town  of  Portsmouth, 
where  Goring  was  in  command.  Upon  re- 
ceiving orders  from  the  Parliament  he  re- 
turned, after  some  hesitation,  the  answer  that 
his  allegiance  was  one  directly  to  the  King, 
and  he  preferred  an  oath  to  his  troops  upon 
the  lines  of  that  declaration.  Whereupon  a 
siege  was  immediately  laid  to  the  town  by 
those  forces  which  admitted  the  authority  of 
Parliament. 

But  all  these  incidents  were  but  the  pre- 
liminaries to  the  formal  opening  of  the  war; 
and  the  date  from  which  that  must  be  counted 
is  August  the  22nd  of  this  same  year,  1642, 
when  King  Charles,  with  ritual  solemnity, 
summoning  "  All  those  north  of  Trent  and 
twenty  miles  south  of  that  river,"  ordered  the 
ceremony  of  the  "  Raising  of  the  Standard  " 
to  take  place  in  a  large  field  outside  the  town 
of  Nottingham  where  he  lay. 

Two  thousand  men  surrounded  the  colours ; 
4000  more  at  the  most  completed  the  little 
force.     Against  these  6000  the  recruitment  of 


212        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

the  Parliament  had  aimed  at  a  total  number 
of  16,000  for  its  side.  The  total  forces  which 
it  had  actually  enrolled  and  armed  by  this  date, 
August  the  22nd,  was  somewhat  more,  and 
Essex,  the  principal  Parliamentary  General, 
lay  at  Northampton  with  his  command  alone 
numbering  15,000  men. 

There  was  one  last  attempt  made  upon  the 
initiative  of  Charles,  after  this  formal  "  Raising 
of  the  Standard,"  to  prevent  Civil  War.  The 
Parliament  refused  his  advances,  and  regular 
hostilities  began. 

The  Civil  War  lasted  as  a  whole  just  over 
nine  years. 

Its  first  date  is  this  22nd  of  August,  1642. 
Its  last,  the  defeat  of  young  Charles  II  at 
Worcester  on  the  3rd  of  September,  1651. 

It  falls  into  three  clearly  marked  divisions — 

(a)  The  first  is  of  not  quite  two  years,  is 
indecisive,  though  upon  the  whole  favourable 
to  the  King ;  but  it  ends  disastrously  for  him 
in  the  battle  of  Marston  Moor  upon  the  2nd  of 
July,  1644. 

This  battle  of  Marston  Moor  is  the  true 
turning-point  of  the  war. 

It  is  followed  by  the  re-modelling  of  the 
Parliamentary  Army. 

(b)  The  second  phase  then  opens  and  ends 
somewhat  two  years  after  the  first  phase  with 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  213 

the  capture  of  Oxford  on  the  20th  of  June, 
1646. 

The  capture  of  Oxford  came  at  the  end  of  a 
number  of  Parliamentary  successes  of  which 
the  greatest  was  the  central  victory  of  Naseby, 
exactly  a  year  before.  The  fall  of  Oxford  was 
but  the  last  of  a  long  series  of  efforts  in  which 
Parliament  had  gradually  worn  down  the 
King  during  this  second  phase  of  two  years, 
and  had  taken  nearly  all  his  garrisons  and  had 
defeated  all  his  armies  in  the  field.  It  appears 
to  close  the  whole  story. 

There  is  no  more  regular  warfare  between 
the  King  and  Parliament  (I  omit  and  refer  to 
its  proper  place  the  conflict  with  the  Scotch), 
but  five  years  later  the  short  third  phase  of 
the  war  consists  in  (c)  the  unexpected  march 
of  Charles  II,  now  lawful  king  after  his  father's 
e]»ecution,  into  Lancashire  and  down  the  west 
of  England.  This  phase  may  be  said  to  begin 
with  Charles's  leading  his  11,000  (or  14,000) 
men  out  of  Stirling  on  the  31st  of  July,  1651, 
and  to  end  thirty-five  days  later  with  his  total 
defeat  at  Worcester  upon  the  3rd  of  September* 

These  three  phases  cover  the  whole  of  the 
struggle. 


214        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

The  First  Phase. 

The  first  phase  of  the  Civil  Wars  is  clearly 
divided  into  (1)  a  preliminary  episode,  which 
is  best  remembered  by  the  name  of  Edge  Hill, 
and  (2)  a  series  of  isolated  actions  which  cover 
the  year  1643,  which  continually  increase  the 
power  of  the  Royalists  but  which  lead  up  in 
1644  to  the  active  aid  lent  by  the  Scotch  to 
the  Parliament,  and  the  final  blow  at  Marston 
Moor. 

(1)  I  have  said  that  Charles  at  Nottingham, 
upon  the  22nd  of  August,  1642,  commanded 
but  6000  men.  Three  or  four  days  south  of 
him  at  Northampton,  and  covering  London 
from  any  attempted  advance  on  the  part  of 
the  King,  lay  Essex  with  15,000. 

Such  an  advance  was,  of  course,  out  of  the 
question  with  the  King's  small  force.  What 
Charles  very  wisely  did  was  to  retire  west- 
ward up  the  valley  of  the  Trent,  and  by  way 
of  Stafford  upon  Shrewsbury.  By  the  time 
he  had  reached  that  town  and  recruited  men 
not  only  upon  the  march  but  in  the  town,  he 
was  at  the  head  of  nearer  twenty  than  eighteen 
thousand  men,  and  with  this  force  he  proposed 
to  march  upon  London. 

Here  let  the  reader  note  once  again  what 


THE  CIVIL  WARS 


215 


London  means  in  the  military  topography  of 
England.  Charles  might  march  upon  the 
City :  he  could  not  count  on  taking  it,  and  all 
those  characters  which  I  have  so  continually 


Bartholome  */ ,  Ldin ' 


emphasised,  and  which  have  saved  London 
from  siege  or  even  from  pillage  through  so 
many  centuries,  made  it  certain  that  the 
Royal  Army  could  not  attempt  its  reduc- 
tion and  might  fail  in  attempting  even  its 
occupation. 


216        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

Charles's  advance  none  the  less  struck  London 
with  panic  and  confused  the  plans  of  Parlia- 
ment. Had  it  come  to  an  actual  assault  or  to 
trying  to  hold  down  that  vast  population  with 
such  a  force  as  Charles  commanded,  the  Civil 
Wars  would  have  ended  far  earlier  than  they 
did  and  would  have  been  equally  disastrous 
to  the  King.  We  shall  see  how,  as  a  fact, 
Charles  was  compelled  to  hesitate  before  the 
Capital,  and  in  the  end  to  withdraw. 

When  Essex  knew  that  Charles  had  under- 
taken his  march  westward  towards  the  Severn 
Valley  he  made  all  speed  to  march  westward 
himself.  He  aimed  at  Worcester  where  the 
Severn  is  nearest  to  the  Midlands  and  to 
Northampton,  and  he  garrisoned  that  town, 
thereby  cutting  the  Severn  Valley.  But  he 
soon  discovered  that  Charles's  object  was  not 
a  defensive  occupation  and  garrisoning  of  the 
Severn  line,  but  an  advance  on  London. 

The  Parliamentary  General  received  the 
most  urgent  orders  to  counter-march  and 
intercept  Charles  if  it  were  possible  by  com- 
ing in  between  him  and  the  Capital.  In  this 
Essex  failed,  but  he  pursued  the  King  rapidly, 
and,  on  the  22nd  of  October,  came  into 
contact  with  his  enemy  at  Kineton,  a  short 
day's  march  out  of  Stratford  upon  the  London 
road  from  Worcester.     The  Royal  Army  had 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  217 

ended  their  day's  march  on  the  far  side  of 
Edge  Hill,  which  lies  at  about  an  hour's  march 
in  front  of  Kineton.  They  turned  back  to 
meet  Essex,  and  on  the  following  day,  Oc- 
tober 23rd,  was  fought  the  Battle  of  Edge  HilL 

It  was  a  very  confused  and  uncertain 
business.  The  numerical  superiority  ^  of  the 
Royal  Army  and  their  further  superiority  of 
position  (they  occupied  the  northern  slope  of 
the  hill)  should  have  secured  them  the  victory. 
It  was,  perhaps,  the  imprudence  of  Rupert's 
Cavalry  in  too  prolonged  a  pursuit  and  pillage 
which  rendered  the  result  tactically  indecisive. 
Essex  was  free  after  the  action  to  withdraw 
his  forces  upon  Warwick,  a  day's  march  away> 
Charles  enjoyed  the  immediate  strategical 
result  of  a  victory,  for  he  was  able  to  pursue 
his  march  unmolested;  but  his  failure  to 
destroy  Essex  was  to  cost  him  dear. 

Few  things  in  the  Civil  War  are  more 
remarkable,  and  few  were  more  disastrous  in 
their  consequences,  than  the  sluggishness  of 
Charles's  advance  after  this  action.      From 

^  Charles's  command  seems  to  have  been  superior  to  the 
total  of  Essex  in  any  case,  but  when  we  consider  that 
Essex  had  wasted  men  in  garrisoning  Warwick  and  Coventry^ 
as  well  as  Worcester,  and  that,  even  of  his  marching 
column,  a  quarter  under  John  Hampden  was  too  far  in 
the  rear  to  come  into  action,  the  great  superiority  of 
Charles  in  the  field  is  certain. 


218        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

Edge  Hill  to  the  Capital  through  Buckingham 
is  not  eighty  miles,  four  days  forced  march- 
ing; five  long  days,  and  a  week  for  the  very 
slowest  calculation,  even  with  a  large  force. 
Yet  Charles  did  not  find  himself  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  London  for  very  nearly  three 
weeks.  He  took  the  little  Parliamentary 
garrison  at  Banbury,  delayed  at  Oxford,  hung 
about  near  Reading  for  no  conceivable  military 
purpose,  and  did  not  begin  to  approach  toward 
the  neighbourhood  of  London  until  the  second 
week  in  November.  He  had  given  Essex 
time  to  come  down  from  the  Midlands  to  the 
Capital ;  Windsor  was  held  by  the  Parliament, 
and  two  further  posts  between  Windsor  and 
London. 

Even  so  the  Parliament  came  very  near  to 
making  peace.  They  had  miscalculated  the 
strength  of  opinion  in  the  country  in  favour 
of  the  King,  and  his  march  disturbed  them. 
They  negotiated  with  him  at  Colnbrook  as  he 
came  up  the  western  road.  By  a  breach  of 
faith  upon  their  part  Brentford  was  occupied 
during  the  negotiations ;  and  Charles,  indignant 
at  this  sharp  practice,  charged  and  took  the 
village  and  the  bridge  with  fifteen  pieces  of 
artillery  and  five  hundred  prisoners.  But 
though  he  was  at  the  very  gates  he  could  do 
nothing  with  London.     The  mere  numerical 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  219 

power  of  the  levies  which  Essex  opposed  to 
him,  bad  material  though  they  were,  made 
that  certain.  Some  24,000  men  opposed  the 
Royal  Army  for  the  whole  of  one  critical  day 
upon  Turnham  Green.  Charles  turned  back 
through  Reading  to  Oxford,  which  City  is 
henceforward  the  pivot  of  the  Royalist  action 
throughout  the  rest  of  the  War. 

So  ended  what  I  have  called  the  episode 
of  Edge  Hill,  which  had  been  the  first  phase  of 
the  struggle.  What  we  have  next  to  follow 
and  what  forms  the  close  of  that  first  phase 
is  far  less  clearly  marked. 

There  was,  of  course,  sporadic  and  isolated 
fighting  all  over  Engand,^  but  the  map  of 
this  struggle  can  be  best  seized  if  we  consider 
three  main  areas. 

(1)  The  Royal  Army  at  Oxford,  which  from 
Oxford  as  a  centre  raids,  captures,  garrisons 
as  best  it  can.  It  has  opposed  to  it,  throughout 
the  whole  spring  and  summer  of  1643,  the 
inactive  command  of  Essex  lying  on  the 
Chilterns  and  in  the  plain  to  the  west  and  at 
the  foot  of  those  hills. 

1  If  the  reader  wishes  to  acquaint  himself  with  the 
enormous  mass  of  record  and  the  utter  confusion  of  the 
time,  let  him  turn  to  the  scholarly  book  called  The 
Civil  War  in  Dorset,  by  Mr.  A.  C.  Bayley,  and  he  will 
sufficiently  understand  the  difficulty  of  disentangling  even 
the  main  lines  of  the  conflict. 


220        WARFARE    IN    ENGLAND 

(2)  An  army  in  the  north  under  Newcastle, 
which  had  for  its  business  the  conquest  of 
Yorkshire,  and  ultimately  a  convergence  upon 
Oxford  and  a  junction  with  the  King. 

(3)  An  army  in  the  west  under  Prince 
Maurice  and  Hopton,  whose  business  it  was  to 
advance  eastward  and  northward,  increasing 
the  area  fully  controlled  by  the  Royalists  and 
ultimately  also  converging  upon  Oxford. 

When  this  convergence  from  the  north  and 
from  the  west  upon  Oxford  should  have  been 
effected,  what  with  the  much  larger  contingents 
Charles  would  then  command  and  the  suc- 
cessive defeats  and  loss  of  public  position  upon 
the  part  of  a  Parliament,  Charles  calculated 
that  he  could  safely  march  on  London,  which 
would  then  receive  him. 

Keeping  this  clear  plan  in  mind  it  is  easy 
to  co-ordinate  the  triple  accidents  which  befell 
each  part  of  the  triple  scheme. 

The  western  force  was  opposed  in  the 
main  by  Waller  as  Parliamentary  General. 
Strategically  it  was  successful.  By  the  5th 
of  July  the  head  of  the  Royalist  advance 
was  at  Bath,  and  inflicted  a  heavy  defeat  upon 
Waller ;  while,  in  an  attempt  to  contain  Hopton 
a  week  later  in  Devizes,  Waller  suffered  the 
descent  of  Wilmot,  who  had  marched  from 
Oxford,  and  the  Parliamentary  Army  in  that 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  221 

quarter  was  wiped  out.  Bristol  fell  to  Prince 
Rupert  exactly  a  fortnight  later ;  and  one  may 
say  that  with  the  end  of  July  1643  the  plan 
had  succeeded  so  far  as  the  junction  of  the 
western  army  with  the  central  army  at 
Oxford  was  concerned,  and  the  general  occupa- 
tion of  the  west  by  Royalist  forces. 

But  the  reader  must  note  one  important 
exception  which  turned  the  scale:  Gloucester 
was  still  garrisoned  by  a  Parliamentary  force. 

Turning  now  to  the  north,  we  find  Royalist 
successes  there  which  are  at  first  almost 
equivalent  to  that  in  the  west.  The  Parlia- 
mentary General  opposed  to  Newcastle  was 
Fairfax.  Newcastle  advanced,  establishing 
Royalist  posts  in  nearly  the  whole  of  York- 
shire, and  pushing  back  Fairfax  into  the  corner 
between  the  Humber  and  the  sea,  whose 
capital  and  military  depot  is  Hull.  But  the 
northern  successes,  though  considerable,  were 
not  complete.  The  line  of  communications 
between  Oxford  and  the  north  was  kept  up 
through  Newark,  which  was  garrisoned  for 
the  King,  but  the  country  in  between  was 
in  no  way  held.  And  that  for  this  reason: 
Lincolnshire  was  got  hold  of  by  the  local 
Parliamentary  bodies  and  added  to  that  belt 
of  eastern  land  which  was  solid  for  the  Parlia- 
ment ;  and  here  it  was  the  genius  of  Cromwell 


222        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

as  a  leader,  coupled  with  the  prestige  surround- 
ing the  immense  wealth  of  the  family  from 
which  he  sprang,  which  was  chiefly  responsible 
for  the  success. 

A  glance  at  the  map  will  show  how  Lincoln- 
shire, held  upon  the  flank  of  the  narrow  gap 
between  the  Yorkshire  plain  and  the  hills, 
would  prevent  any  secure  communication 
between  the  Midlands,  with  Oxford  on  their 
south,  and  that  Yorkshire  plain,  even  had  it 
been  fully  subdued  by  Newcastle.  But  it 
was  not  fully  subdued.  The  successes  of  the 
Parliament  in  Lincolnshire  permitted  Fairfax 
to  rally,  and  by  the  autumn  of  1643  all  that 
can  be  said  of  the  Royal  successes  in  the  north 
was  that  they  held  their  own  not  quite  up  to 
the  line  of  the  Humber. 

Now,  in  reviewing  the  general  situation  of 
the  summer  of  1643,  what  you  get  is  this  : 
the  west  has  been  upon  the  whole  thoroughly 
recaptured  for  the  King  and  the  western 
army  has  effected  its  junction  with  the  Oxford 
command,  but  to  this  apparently  complete 
success  there  are  two  very  important  modifica- 
tions. First,  of  the  total  forces  levied  in  the 
west  many  had  refused  to  proceed  to  the 
Midlands  and  to  abandon  the  neighbourhood 
of  their  homes — ^the  junction  with  the  Oxford 
command,     therefore,     though     strategically 


224        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

effected,  did  not  mean,  as  it  should  have  meant, 
a  large  numerical  increase.  Secondly,  one 
important  garrison  still  held  out  for  the 
Parliament  —  the  garrison  of  Gloucester. 
Meanwhile,  the  northern  successes  are  not 
complete,  and  though  communications  are 
open  between  Gloucester  and  the  north  by  way 
of  Newark,  they  are  badly  threatened  on  their 
eastern  flank,  and  there  is  no  true  occupation 
of  the  belt  of  coimtry  between  the  Midlands 
and  the  Yorkshire  plain. 

It  was  under  such  a  combination  of  as  yet 
incomplete  success  that  the  Royalist  Army  laid 
siege  to  Gloucester.  The  operations  began 
upon  the  10th  of  August.  This  siege  was  well 
justified  by  the  condition  of  the  war,  for  it 
was  essential  to  the  King  to  make  the  west 
as  thoroughly  his  own  as  the  east  was  Parlia- 
ment's. But  the  event  has  unjustly  caused 
many  historians  to  call  the  siege  of  Gloucester 
a  blunder.  If  there  was  a  blunder  it 
appeared  not  in  the  inception  of  the  task, 
but  in  some  miscalculation  of  its  gravity. 
Throughout  the  whole  of  that  month  of  August 
Gloucester  held  out;  and  meanwhile  Essex 
was  marching  with  an  army  of  12,000  men 
from  London  to  relieve  it.  He  arrived  in 
front  of  the  town  on  the  5th  of  September, 
revictualled  it,  and  raised  the  siege. 


THE   CIVIL   WARS  225 

That  is  the  capital  point  of  the  year  1643. 
That  Essex  marching  back  upon  London 
happened  upon  the  Royal  Army  (itself  in 
retreat)  at  Newbury,  and  there  fought  an 
indecisive  action  is  strategically  unimportant. 
Fairfax  went  on,  as  he  had  intended,  to 
London ;  and  the  King,  as  he  had  intended,  to 
Oxford.  But  the  raising  of  the  siege  of 
Gloucester  left  a  Parliamentary  garrison  in 
the  heart  of  the  west,  proved  the  numerical 
weakness  of  the  King's  command,  and,  by 
cutting  through  the  united  hne  which  Charles 
was  attempting  to  form  from  Yorkshire 
through  Newark  and  Oxford  to  Somerset, 
destroyed  that  combination. 

With  the  opening  of  1644,  everything  began 
to  change.  In  the  first  place,  Parliament  had 
made  an  alliance  with  the  Scotch,  and  on 
the  25th  of  January  the  Scotch  crossed  the 
Border.  In  the  second  place,  the  King,  caUing 
a  halt  to  a  struggle  in  Ireland  which  had  been 
long  proceeding  between  Royal  forces  and  a 
rebellion,  summoned  his  troops  in  Ireland 
to  come  over  and  join  him  in  Britain.  Five 
regiments  landed  in  Flint  and  marched  upon 
Nantwich,  where  there  was  a  small  ParUa- 
mentary  garrison ;  Fairfax  was  ordered  across 
England  from  South  Yorkshire,  and  upon  the 
same   day   as   that  upon   which   the   Scotch 


226        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

crossed  the  Border,  he  not  only  reheved  the 
siege  of  Nantwich,  but  destroyed,  captured, 
or  actually  incorporated  with  his  own  troops 
the  newly  arrived  regiments  from  Ireland. 

This  double  date,  January  25,  1644,  is 
of  high  importance.  It  meant,  in  the  first 
place,  that  there  was  no  possibility  of  junction 
between  Newcastle  and  Yorkshire  and  the 
King  in  the  Midlands  and  the  west — since 
Fairfax  had  marched  in  between  with  im- 
punity and  struck  his  blow  right  across  the 
line.  It  meant,  in  the  second  place,  that  the 
Royal  forces  in  Yorkshire  were  now  between 
two  fires :  the  Scotch  on  the  north,  the 
Parliament  on  the  south.  Rupert  in  the 
spring,  by  a  series  of  excellent  cavalry  actions, 
did  recover  Cheshire  and  South  Lancashire. 
Further,  he  had  prevented  the  Parliament 
from  capturing  Newark,  to  which  they  had 
laid  siege.  But  for  all  these  successes  (which 
extended  the  Royahst  area  into  the  north- 
west, and  maintained  at  Newark  a  point  which 
might  prove  useful  in  the  future  if  Yorkshire 
should  have  been  but  held),  the  great  plan  of 
the  year  before  had  obviously  fallen  through. 
There  had  been  no  general  concentration  at 
Oxford.  Even  the  west  was  not  completely 
held,  for  Gloucester  still  held  out.  The 
Royalist  force   in   the   north   had    failed  to 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  227 

effect  its  junction  with  Oxford,  and  was  now 
itself  in  peril. 

Newcastle,  on  the  arrival  of  the  Scotch, 
had  thrown  himself  into  the  town  from  which 
he  took  his  title;  the  Scotch  had  besieged 
him  for  three  weeks  without  avail.  They 
abandoned  the  siege  to  march  southward. 
Newcastle  followed  them;  but  the  new  com- 
bination of  the  Scotch  forces  with  the  pressure 
exercisable  by  the  Fairfaxes  to  the  south  of 
him  compelled  him  to  throw  himself  into 
York.  When  the  Parliament  sent  up  Man- 
chester with  14,000  more  men,  Newcastle 
saw  that  the  fate  of  the  north  would  be 
decided  within  the  next  few  days.  He  sent 
urgently  to  the  King  in  Oxford  for  succour. 
But  the  Oxford  command  was  itself  in  danger, 
and  was  too  small  to  break  through  into  the 
north.  It  had  enough  to  do  to  elude  the 
Parliamentary  armies,  and  to  save  its  7000 
men  by  marching  and  counter-marching  be- 
tween the  Midlands  and  the  Severn  Valley. 

Rupert  still  remained,  however;  he  could 
be  sent  from  his  successes  in  Lancashire  to 
the  aid  of  Newcastle,  and  he  received  orders 
from  the  Kiujg  to  march  at  once  upon  York, 
effect  his  junction  with  Newcastle,  raise  the 
siege  of  York  and  save  the  north.  He  im- 
mediately obeyed.     He  crossed  the  Pennines 


§28        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

in  the  last  week  of  June,  1644.  On  the  27th 
of  that  month  his  advance  guard  was  at 
Skipton,  with  York  but  forty  miles  away. 
On  the  28th  his  main  body  was  on  the  saddle 
of  the  Pennine s.  Upon  Sunday  the  30th, 
the  Parliamentary  Army  under  Cromwell  and 
Manchester,  besieging  Newcastle  in  York, 
heard  that  Rupert  was  already  at  Knares- 
borough,  only  one  long  day's  march  away. 
They  raised  the  siege,  and  on  Monday,  the 
1st  of  July,  Rupert  marched  into  York  city 
and  effected  his  junction  with  Newcastle. 

This  was  the  critical  moment  of  the  whole 
war.  Two  considerable  forces  lay  within 
striking  distance  of  each  other.  Rupert  and 
Newcastle,  now  combined  and  at  the  head  of 
more  than  23,000  but  less  than  25,000  men, 
had  immediately  to  their  east  an  enemy's 
force  of  at  least  equal  magnitude,  which  had 
retired  from  before  the  walls  of  the  city  a 
distance  of  five  miles.  The  situation  called 
for  a  decision,  and  the  victory  of  either  party 
would  determine  the  whole  fate  of  the  north. 
If  the  Royalists  should  be  the  victors,  that 
would  make  possible  a  march  south  and  a 
junction  with  the  King  in  the  Midlands  ;  if 
they  should  be  defeated,  that  would  destroy 
the  northern  army  as  a  factor  in  the  war, 
isolate   the  King,    and    leave    him   certainly 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  229 

doomed  to  see  his  inferior  forces  worn  out 
and  destroyed. 

It  was  upon  the  morrow,  Tuesday,  the  2nd 
of  July  that  the  united  forces  of  Rupert  and 
Newcastle  marched  out  of  York  city  east- 
wards to  meet  the  enemy.  They  came  upon 
him  at  Marston  Moor  between  Long  Marston 
and  the  River  Nidd.  All  afternoon  the  two 
forces  watched  each  other  without  an  engage- 
ment. Rupert  depended  upon  a  ditch  which 
ran  across  the  field  for  sufficient  cover,  and 
awaited  the  attack.  Six  o'clock  passed  and 
the  attack  was  not  delivered.  The  Royalists 
did  not  believe  it  would  be  delivered  that 
day.  Rupert  upon  the  left  wing  dismounted 
(as  did  some  of  his  officers),  and  called  for 
supper.  Immediately,  though  the  sun  was 
already  near  setting,  the  right  wing  of  the 
Parliamentary  Army  cavalry,  which  Oliver 
Cromwell  commanded,  charged.  The  various 
fortunes  of  the  two  lines,  the  defeat  of  Rupert's 
horse,  the  converse  defeat  of  the  Scotch  and 
most  of  the  Parliamentary  infantry,  the  re- 
covery of  the  situation  by  Cromwell's  return 
from  pursuing  Rupert  and  his  charging  of  the 
successful  Royalist  Infantry  in  flank,  made 
up  the  three  tactical  phases  of  the  battle. 
It  was  the  last,  Cromwell's  second  charge, 
which  decided  it  completely  in  favour  of  the 


230        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

Parliament.  Fifteen  hundred  prisoners  and 
every  Royalist  gun  were  by  sunset  in  the 
hands  of  the  rebellion;  and  with  the  fall  of 
darkness  upon  that  Tuesday  the  issue  of  the 
war  was  really  decided. 

The  Second  Phase. 

I  trust  I  have  made  clear  the  main  strategic 
lines  of  the  first  phase  in  the  Civil  Wars, 
and  the  two  principal  incidents  which,  in 
determining  that  first  phase,  determined  also 
ultimately  the  whole  fortunes  of  the  struggle. 

It  had  been  intended  for  the  army  of  the 
south-west  to  occupy  everything  for  the 
King  over  that  region  and  up  to  the  Midlands, 
making  for  Oxford  as  the  rallying  point. 
It  was  further  intended  for  the  army  in  the 
north  under  Newcastle  to  occupy  all  the 
open  land  north  of  Trent  until  this  spreading 
area  of  occupation  should  also  join  up  with 
Oxford.  Meanwhile  at  Oxford,  the  King's 
headquarters,  the  third  army  should  have 
its  centre  and  raid  outwards  towards  the 
other  two,  and  in  general,  confirm  that  policy 
of  occupying  the  whole  west  of  England, 
which  was  the  prime  strategic  purpose  of 
the  King. 

The  relief  of  Gloucester,  coupled  with  the 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  231 

failure  of  many  of  the  western  levies  to  leave 
their  homes,  destroyed  the  first,  or  western, 
part  of  this  plan.  The  second,  or  northern, 
had  been  even  less  successful ;  it  was  in  par- 
ticular threatened  by  the  advance  of  the 
Scotch  in  aid  of  the  Parliament,  when,  with 
the  battle  of  Marston  Moor,  it  was  utterly 
defeated  and  the  north  was  lost  for  ever  to 
the  Royal  cause. 

As  a  result  of  that  disaster,  Charles's 
forces  were  now  strategically  confined,  so  far 
as  their  main  cohesive  bodies  went,  to  the 
west  alone.  In  the  autumn  of  1644,  and  so 
early  as  the  1st  of  September,  an  astonishing 
and  inexplicable  march  of  Essex's  right  into 
Cornwall  (which  made  him  suspected  of 
treason)  ended  in  complete  disaster;  but  no 
such  accidental  success  could  retrieve  the 
chances  of  the  King.  Nor  could  the  fact 
that  seven  weeks  later  the  mass  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary forces  (with  Cromwell  amongst 
them)  failed  to  crush  the  King  at  Newbury, 
upon  October  the  22nd,  where  this  second 
battle  in  the  neighbourhood  of  that  town 
was  as  indecisive  as  the  first. 

But  these  two  checks  (for  strategically 
the  defeat  in  Cornwall  was  as  negative  as 
the  lack  of  success  at  Newbury)  brought  a 
great  decision  upon  that  man  on  the  Parlia- 


282        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

mentary  side  who  had  the  most  soldierly 
eye.  This  man  was,  of  course,  Cromwell. 
After  sundry  political  moves,  which  do  not 
concern  the  general  military  plan  of  the 
struggle,  he  founded  a  true  standing  army 
to  which  was  given  the  name  of  "  The  New 
Model."  About  21,000  men,  very  highly  paid 
but  subject  to  a  strict  discipline,  were  in- 
corporated. Of  this  force,  roughly  one-third 
consisted  of  cavalry,  two -thirds  of  infantry. 

The  motion  to  create  this  regular  and 
novel  army  originated  on  the  23rd  of 
November,  1644.  The  ordinance  was  issued 
and  proclaimed  throughout  London  on  the 
15th  of  February,  1645. 

Marston  Moor  had  made  it  certain  that 
Charles  must  be  ultimately  worn  down. 
The  ordinance  of  the  15th  of  February,  1645, 
made  it  certain  that  the  business  would  be 
quickly  dispatched.  It  was  upon  the  30th 
of  April  that  the  "  New  Model,"  as  it  was 
called,  took  the  field. 

They  were  bidden  march  upon  Taunton 
and  afterwards  to  besiege  Oxford,  although 
the  unexpected  victories  of  the  King's  ally 
or  lieutenant  in  Scotland,  Montrose,  were 
already  causing  anxiety.  Charles  had 
marched  northward  through  the  Midlands 
upon  the  news  of  those  Scotch  successes  of 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  233 

his  party;  he  took  Leicester  upon  his  way, 
and  Fairfax,  at  the  head  of  the  "  New  Model," 
was,  luckily  for  him,  ordered  by  the  Parlia- 
ment to  pursue. 


Leicester 


}  \^  Market  ^ 

I  / 

(  ^ 

,  X  Naseby 


/  ^Northampton 


Oxfordii]V<- 


>    UhcLr/es '  /0,000 

>   Fcurfax 

ScaJe  of  Mi!6S 


Barc/ielomctiitc/ih 


It  must  carefully  be  noted  that  Charles 
had  with  him  but  10,000  men;  as  I  say,  he 
was  being  worn  down.  Of  that  10,000  men 
half  were  cavalry.  They  took  Leicester  by 
assault,  small  as  their  force  was,  and  they 


234        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

committed  the  imprudence  of  leaving  a 
garrison  in  Leicester,  reducing  their  numbers 
to  perhaps  little  more  than  7000,  and 
certainly  not  more  than  8000.  Fairfax,  who 
was  pursuing  fast,  was  close  at  the  King's  heels. 
Charles  turned  eastwards  and  southwards 
with  a  very  bad  intelligence  service,  and  not 
appreciating  his  danger.  At  supper  on  the 
13th  of  June,  1645,  he  recorded  his  intention 
of  marching  the  next  morning  up  north- 
wards through  Melton  to  Belvoir.  That  same 
evening  Cromwell,  for  whose  leadership  the 
Parliamentary  cavalry  longed,  joined  the 
army  at  Kislingbury  on  the  River  Nene, 
three  miles  east  of  Northampton.  Upon 
the  next  day,  the  14th  of  June,  the  whole 
army  was  concentrated  at  Naseby,  three 
hours  to  the  north,  and  there  awaited  the 
attack  of  the  Royal  Army  which  lay  in 
front  of  Market  Har borough.  Why  superior 
forces  should  have  awaited  the  attack  of 
inferior  no  modern  military  historian  can 
explain ;  the  Parliamentary  forces  were  nearly 
two  to  one.  But  at  any  rate  it  was  Charles 
who  attacked,  Rupert,  a  point  of  scarlet  on 
his  great  horse,  leading  the  first  charge,  and 
as  all  the  world  knows  the  result  was  a  decisive 
victory  for  the  Parliament.  Again,  as  at 
Marston  Moor,  every  piece  fell  into  the  hands 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  235 

of  the  victors,  all  the  King's  baggage,  and 
for  that  matter  great  bodies  of  his  men  as 
well.  The  only  thing  that  can  be  said  about 
this  second  and  crushing  decisive  victory  of 
the  Civil  Wars  is  that,  with  the  numerical 
superiority  of  two  to  one,  it  is  amazing  that 
it  was  not  better  managed,  for  there  were 
moments  during  its  development  in  which, 
incredible  as  it  sounds  to  modern  ears, 
Charles  had  a  chance  of  success. 

Among  other  things  in  this  defeat,  the  King's 
private  papers  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
victors. 

After  that  blow,  the  war  smoulders  out  in 
a  series  of  capitulations  upon  the  part  of 
those  scattered  garrisons  whereby  the  Royal 
generals  had  held  so  much  of  England.  The 
King  himself  went  to  Wales.  The  siege 
of  Taunton  was  raised,  Bridgewater  was 
stormed ;  even  Bristol,  with  Prince  Rupert  to 
defend  it,  fell.  His  last  external  army,  that 
of  Montrose  in  Scotland,  was  fatally  defeated 
upon  the  12th  of  September —  a  mere  remnant, 
and  Charles,  standing  at  last  in  Chester,  saw 
his  own  last  force  defeated  on  Rowton  Heath, 
as  he  watched  from  the  city  walls.  This  was 
upon  the  23rd  of  September,  and  the  war  was 
over.  The  rest  of  the  conflict  is  purely 
political,    save   for   that   unexpected   march 


236        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

which  his  young  son  made  five  years  later,  a 
brief  adventure  which  ended  in  the  disaster 
of  Worcester,  and  which  I  have  called  the 
third  phase. 

The  Third  Phase  (the  Campaign  of 
Worcester). 

The  third  phase  of  the  Civil  Wars  is  a  short 
campaign,  which  terminated  in  the  Battle  of 
Worcester,  and  which  forms  the  last  military 
action  permanently  establishing  the  power  of 
Cromwell. 

The  march  which  Cromwell  made  against 
the  Scotch,  his  victory  at  Dunbar  and  what  he 
believed  to  be  his  consequent  immunity  from 
further  opposition,  belong  to  warfare  in 
Scotland,  and  must  be  dealt  with  very  briefly 
where  I  attempt  to  analyse  the  main  lines  of 
the  various  Scotch  expeditions.  It  must  be 
enough  to  say  here  that  he  had  thoroughly 
succeeded  by  the  spring  of  1651  in  occupying 
the  greater  part  of  the  Lowlands.  He  was 
in  possession  of  Edinburgh,  and  though 
suffering  from  illness  in  the  earlier  part  of  the 
year,  and  even  proposing  a  return  to  England, 
he  was  so  far  recovered  by  the  earlier  part  of 
July  that  he  was  ready  to  attempt  the  line  of 
the  Forth  which  was  held  against  him  by  his 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  237 

enemies.  He  forced  that  line,  and  Fifeshire 
fell  into  his  power.  Perth  surrendered  upon 
the  2nd  of  August,  but  in  the  very  moment 
when  he  achieved  that  success  Cromwell 
received  the  news  of  Charles's  move  to  the 
south. 

Charles  II,  the  young  King  whose 
fortunes  in  England  seemed  ruined  by  the 
execution  of  his  father  two  years  before,  had 
by  that  very  account  found  himself  able  to 
rely  upon  the  national  feeling  of  Scotland. 
He  had  landed  in  that  country  and  it  was 
round  his  person  that  the  resistance  to  Crom- 
well gathered.  He  lay  at  Stirling,  which  was 
as  yet  untaken,  when  Cromwell  succeeded 
in  forcing  the  line  of  the  Lower  Forth  and  in 
subduing  the  north-eastern  Lowlands.  From 
Stirling  the  young  man  designed  that  fine 
adventurous  plan  which  ended  in  disaster. 
And,  upon  the  last  day  of  July,  while  his 
enemies  were  thus  occupied  upon  his  left, 
Charles  II  marshalled  his  army  upon  the  fields 
below  Stirling  Rock  and  set  out  for  the  south. 

He  marched,  of  course,  by  the  difficult 
western  road,  since  Cromwell  was  in  possession 
of  the  way  along  the  east,  and  through 
Berwick,  which  was  the  normal  avenue  of 
approach  from  Scotland  to  England. 

It  was  a  force  of  something  between  11,000 


Barif}eJo.Tit.it^ldifr 


THE  CIVIL  WARS  239 

and  14,000  men  which  began  the  dash  south- 
ward :  largely  composed  of  Highland  ele- 
ments, and  therefore  not  only  lacking  the 
regular  discipline  which  the  troops  of  the 
seventeenth  century  had  learnt  throughout 
Europe,  but  also  (as  is  affirmed  by  those  best 
capable  of  judging)  unfitted  to  receive  such 
a  discipline,  they  had  for  their  advantage  a 
great  enthusiasm,  and  as  they  unfortunately 
for  themselves  believed,  a  general  backing  in 
England. 

The  rapid  movement  gave  to  Charles  II's 
force  an  advantage  of  about  three  days. 

They  advanced  with  sufficient  rapidity  to 
maintain  that  advantage,  or  nearly  so.  From 
Stirling  to  Carlisle  by  the  western  roads,  even 
if  one  takes  the  most  direct  crossings,  is  not 
less  than  120  miles.  The  further  advance 
along  the  Valley  of  Eden  to  Penrith  is  a 
matter  of  twenty  more  by  the  road  which  the 
army  followed,  yet  Charles's  force,  somewhat 
recruited  upon  the  march,  and  now  perhaps 
16,000  men  strong,  was  at  Penrith  upon  the 
7th  of  August  He  had  averaged  a  full 
twenty  miles  a  day.  At  Penrith  he  was 
proclaimed  King.  The  crossing  of  the  fells 
between  Penrith  and  Kendal  enforced  rather 
shorter  days,  but  the  twenty-seven  miles  were 
covered  in  two  days.     He  entered  Penrith 


240        WARFABE   IN  ENGLAND 

upon  August  the  9th,  and  there,  as  in  every 
market  town  through  which  he  passed,  re- 
issued the  proclamation  of  his  kingship. 
Upon  the  second  day  after  Kendal,  he  entered 
Lancaster  unopposed,  and  on  the  morrow, 
August  the  12th,  he  was  proclaimed  in  that 
capital  of  the  north-west  at  the  cross  in  the 
market  place.  He  marched  out  again  on 
the  13th,  and  two  more  days  brought  him 
to  Preston,  the  march  being  still  further 
relaxed  to  little  more  than  ten  miles  a  day ; 
but  upon  the  14th  of  August  the  King  himself 
was  as  far  south  as  Bryn  Hall  beyond  Wigan, 
and  within  half  a  day's  march  of  Warrington. 
In  England  itself  there  had  been  very  little 
recruiting,  and  on  the  other  hand,  a  certain 
number  of  desertions.  It  was  at  Warrington 
that  the  pursuit  got  into  touch  with  Charles's 
advance.  The  Parliamentary  forces  which 
had  been  hurrying  along  the  left  of  Charles's 
march  managed  to  be  a  detachment  in  front 
of  it,  holding  Warrington  village  and  covering 
that  detachment  by  another  force  to  the  north 
of  Warrington  town,  but  the  town  was  taken 
before  midday,  and  in  the  afternoon  the  bridge 
was  carried.  The  Parliamentary  force  retired 
upon  Knutsford,  hoping  that  Charles  would 
turn  to  engage,  tempted  by  their  small 
numbers ;  but  the  enemy  disappointed  them 


THE   CIVIL  WARS  241 

and  continued  to  march  straight  south.  He 
received  a  reinforcement  of  less  than  400 
men  under  Derby  as  he  passed  through 
Cheshire,  but  this  small  force  was  sent  back 
into  Lancashire,  where  it  was  decided  to 
recruit  considerable  numbers  and  to  maintain 
the  war  upon  the  rear  of  the  King's  advance. 
That  attempt  failed.  Lancashire  did  not 
rise,  and  the  attempt  to  hold  the  southern 
part  of  the  county  for  the  King  was  broken 
a  week  later  at  Wigton.  Meanwhile,  six 
days  after  crossing  the  Mersey  Charles  had 
reached  Worcester,  a  very  rapid  piece  of 
marching  again  involving  nearly  twenty  miles 
a  day,  if  we  reckon  the  check  in  time  produced 
by  the  fighting  at  Warrington  bridge,  and 
the  fact  that  the  forces  entered  Worcester 
town,  not  at  the  end  of  a  long  march,  but  in 
the  course  of  a  day's  advance.  With  the 
entry  of  Charles's  men  into  the  town  of 
Worcester,  the  strategics  of  the  campaign 
come  to  an  end.  Charles  fortified  the  place. 
Cromwell  with  the  Parliamentary  Army 
reached  Evesham  four  days  later,  and  was 
virtually  in  touch  with  his  enemy.^ 

The  numbers  of  the  two  opponents  were  as 
four  to  seven,  and  Cromwell  had  against  a  no 

1  Tlie   two  places   are,  as  we  saw  in  discussing  the 
campaign  of  De  Montfort,  just  one  fair  day's  march. 
Q 


242        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

longer  confident  and  loosely  organised  enemy 
of  16,000  at  the  most,  28,000  men  well 
disciplined  and  ready  for  the  action  that 
followed.  It  was  fought  upon  the  3rd  of 
September.  It  resulted  in  the  total  destruc- 
tion of  Charles's  army,  and  the  final  establish- 
ment not  only  of  Cromwell  over  the  Govern- 
ment of  England,  but  of  a  unity  of  command 
and  authority  from  the  Grampians  to  the 
Channel. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    SCOTCH    WARS 

The  warfare  levied  by  English  rulers  against 
Scotland  and  Wales  may  be  summed  up  thus 
as  to  its  strategical  character  :  Against  Wales 
the  whole  action  consisted  of  isolated  border 
fighting  from  stations  or  castles  in  the  vales, 
and  particularly  where  the  vales  open  out 
upon  the  Welsh  marches,  and  that  border 
fighting  was  directed  against  the  hill  country. 
To  this  general  formula,  which  covers  the  whole 
story  between  the  end  of  the  Imperial  rule 
in  Britain  and  the  sixteenth  century,  there  is 
but  one  exception — to  wit,  the  organised 
occupation  of  all  the  castles  by  Edward  I. 


THE  SCOTCH  WARS  243 

These  combats  carry  no  strategical  plan  and 
cannot  therefore  be  summarised  here. 

As  to  the  warfare  of  English  armies  directed 
against  Scotland,  if  we  neglect  the  promiscu- 
ous combats  of  the  Border  chieftains  it  may 
in  its  turn  be  summed  up  in  a  simple  formula. 
An  English  army  marches  north  by  the  easiest 
road  of  invasion^  that  along  the  eastern  coast : 
it  makes  for  Stirling,  the  nodal  point  of  the 
south :  or  a  Scotch  army  marches  south  by  the 
same  road.  An  action,  usually  decisive,  is 
fought  to  the  advantage  of  one  or  the  other 
adversary.  It  fails  to  decide  the  campaign ; 
even  if  adverse  the  independence  of  Scot- 
land from  England  (in  a  military  sense)  is 
preserved. 

To  this  use  of  the  Eastern  Road  there  is  no 
true  exception.  Every  march  of  consequence, 
whether  Edward  I's  or  Edward  II's,  or  that 
of  the  Earl  of  Surrey  under  Henry  VIII,  or 
that  of  King  James  opposing  him,  or  that  of 
Cromwell  in  1650,  is  so  undertaken.  This 
applies  even  to  the  march  upon  Flodden, 
for  though  the  Tweed  was  crossed  upon 
that  occasion  a  day's  march  up  from 
Berwick,  that  exception  but  proves  the 
rule  in  this  sense  :  that  no  army  in  all  those 
centuries  attempted  to  negotiate  the  formid- 
able   obstacle    of    the   Border    hills.     It    is 


244        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

possible  that  in  the  last  years  of  Edward  I 
we  should  have  had  a  break  in  so  general  a 
sequence  of  military  history,  for  Edward  had 
summoned  his  last  invading  army  at  Carlisle, 
but  he  died  before  that  army  could  march, 
and  though  his  heir  received  Scotch  allegiance 
at  Dumfries,  upon  that  western  road  which 
with  such  difficulty  outflanks  the  Border  hills 
of  Liddesdale  and  Cheviot,  of  Annandale  and 
of  Esk,  yet  there  was  not  at  the  moment  a 
prosecution  of  the  invasion  by  so  difficult  a 
path;  and  when,  in  1314,  the  effort  was  re- 
newed, it  was  undertaken  by  the  regular 
eastern  road  through  Berwick.  It  is  true 
that  Charles  II,  in  that  wonderful  march  to 
Worcester,  used  the  western  road,  passing 
through  Carlisle  and  Lancashire,  and  in  the 
"  '15  "  the  Border  was  actually  crossed  to 
the  west,  while  the  subsequent  march  of 
the  Scotch  invaders  in  English  territory  was 
towards  Penrith  and  Lancashire;  the  same 
is  true  of  the  invasion  of  "  '45." 

But  in  regular  military  operations  between 
each  nation  before  the  union  no  considerable 
military  operation  affecting  the  history  of 
the  two  countries  in  any  final  manner  has 
attempted  to  pass  the  wild  and  deserted 
Border  country  save  by  the  traditional 
eastern    road.     This    is    the    first  and  main 


THE   SCOTCH  WARS  245 

feature  of  the  warfare  between  Scotland  and 
England. 

The  second  is  that  every  single  invasion 
which  permits  an  English  force  (before  the 
union  of  the  two  Crowns)  to  penetrate  into  the 
Lowlands  between  the  Clyde  and  the  Forth, 
is  checked  sooner  or  later  (and  usually  sooner 
than  later)  by  the  wall  of  the  Highlands ;  and 
sometimes  a  day's  march  or  so  before  breaking 
itself  against  that  wall. 

After  the  legal  union  of  the  two  Crowns  in 
the  junction  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  (a  union  purely  political  and  not 
arrived  at  by  warfare),  the  problem  changes 
somewhat  because  the  garrisons  north  of  the 
Border  are  legitimately  commanded  by  a 
Government  residing  to  the  south  of  it,  and 
any  military  action  necessarily  takes  the  form 
of  a  local  rebellion.  Even  so,  the  main  lines 
I  have  laid  down  remain  true,  and  the  High- 
lands never  form  a  seat  of  war,  not  even  in 
the  "  '45 "  in  any  true  sense.  They  have 
been  conquered  and  transformed  in  our  own 
day  by  influences  very  different  from  those 
used  by  soldiers. 

Excluding  the  seizure  of  the  Scotch  Low- 
lands by  Edward  I,  and  King  John's  raid 
nearly  a  century  later,  three  definite  cam- 
paigns  mark   regular    conflict    between   the 


THE   SCOTCH  WARS  247 

Scotch  and  the  Enghsh  governments  or 
nations.  That  of  Bannockburn,  that  of 
Flodden,  and  that  of  Dunbar. 

The  strategy  of  each  is  so  simple  that  their 
main  Hnes  may  be  laid  down  very  briefly. 

A  fourth  expedition,  not  so  much  concerned 
with  the  national  struggle  as  with  a  sectional 
one,  and  concerned  with  the  crushing  of  the 
Rebellion  in  1745,  completes  the  list. 

The  campaign  of  Bannockburn,  which  was 
the  end  of  all  medieval  attempts  to  unite 
the  two  Crowns,  was  as  brief  as  its  strategy 
was  simple.  Edward  II  summoned  a  force 
at  Berwick  to  recover  the  castles  and  posts 
which  his  father  had  held,  but  which  a  national 
uprising  had  either  taken  or  imperilled.  The 
object  of  the  march  was  Stirling,  which  lies 
just  at  the  apex  of  that  Lowland  triangle 
which  is  the  best  crossing  of  the  Lower  Forth, 
which  is  the  nodal  point  where  the  roads  to 
the  north-eastern  and  the  western  Lowlands 
cross,  and  which  has,  therefore,  always  been 
the  objective  of  a  march  from  the  south. 
How  large  a  force  met  the  King  at  Berwick 
we  cannot  tell.  It  was  certainly  consider- 
able, if  we  may  judge  from  the  impression 
produced  upon  contemporaries,  but  it  was 
less  large  than  Edward  had  hoped  for,  for 
the  opposition  that  was  ultimately  to  ruin 


248        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

him  had  already  grown  strong.  Edward 
left  Berwick  in  the  middle  of  June  1314. 
He  allowed  a  week  for  the  march  to  Stirling, 
he  arrived  under  the  rock  of  that  citadel 
upon  the  23rd.  The  exact  disposition  of  the 
armies  has  been  and  remains  a  matter  for 
debate,  but  the  best  opinion  seems  to  be 
that  the  30,000  or  the  40,000  men  of  the 
national  forces  under  Bruce  lay  much  along 
the  line  of  the  present  road  from  Stirling  to 
Wallstale,  with  their  right  upon  the  stream 
called  the  Bannockbum,  and  their  left  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Stirling  itself.  The  battle, 
which  resulted  in  the  complete  defeat  of 
Edward  and  his  much  larger  forces,  was 
fought  upon  the  next  day,  the  24th  of  June, 
1314,  and  has  one  principal  meaning  in  the 
general  history  of  European  warfare,  which  is 
this :  That,  for  the  first  time  since  the  Romans, 
infantry  standing  imshaken  proved  that  they 
could  resist  cavalry,  however  heavy  the  shock. 
It  was  a  lesson  learnt  and  developed  through- 
out the  fourteenth  century.  It  decided  Cr^cy, 
and  in  the  long  process  of  two  hundred  years 
changed  the  art  of  war.  The  retreat  or  rout 
followed  the  road  by  which  the  advance  had 
been  made,  and  Edward's  first  breathing  space 
was  at  Dunbar. 

The  second  campaign,  that  of  Flodden,  is 


THE   SCOTCH  WARS  249 

equally  simple,  though  its  result  was  the  exact 
reverse.  Its  date  is  almost  exactly  two 
hundred  years  after  that  of  Bannockbum, 
the  decisive  action  being  fought  upon  the 
9th  of  September,  1518. 

The  advance  in  this  campaign  was  on  the 
part  of  the  Scotch.  Their  King,  James  the 
Sixth,  crossed  the  Tweed  before  the  English 
force  under  Surrey  had  marched  from  Ponte- 
fract.  Surrey  commanded  perhaps  26,000 
men;  how  many  marched  under  James's 
command  we  do  not  accurately  know,  but 
it  was  certainly  40,000,  and  very  probably 
more.  The  result  is  the  more  surprising, 
especially  as  even  the  26,000  which  Surrey 
marshalled  were  largely  composed  of  hurried 
levies  from  the  gentry  upon  the  Border.  The 
Scotch  marching  along  the  south  of  the  Tweed 
crossed  the  Till  at  Ford  (where  they  destroyed 
the  castle),  and  went  up  to  that  height  called 
Flodden  Edge,  immediately  to  the  west  of  the 
river,  which  is  the  last  northern  outpost  of 
Cheviot.  It  was  a  strong  position,  and  again 
we  must  note  the  anomaly  that  the  Scotch, 
in  spite  of  their  superiority  of  numbers,  should 
have  stood  upon  the  defensive.  At  least  the 
position  they  had  taken  up  on  the  height  was  a 
defensive  one  until  they  found  that  Surrey  had 
outflanked  them.     That  commander  had  gone 


250        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

up  the  right  bank  of  the  Till,  crossing  it  at 
Twizell  Mill  about  a  mile  from  its  junction  with 
the  Tweed,  and  so  marched  from  the  north 
against  the  Scotch,  cutting  them  off  from  their 
own  country  and  threatening  their  retreat. 
Under  that  threat,  the  Scotch  force  came 
down  northward  from  the  height,  advanced 
to  the  attack  of  their  inferior  enemy,  down 
the  hill  called  Branxton  Hill  and  across  the 
open  fields  which  lie  to  the  south  of  Branxton 
village.  The  issue  was  not  joined  until  nearly 
five  in  the  evening  :  it  was  decided  within  an 
hour,  and  by  sunset  the  Scotch  force  was 
destroyed.  Its  park  of  artillery,  splendid  for 
the  time  and  consisting  in  seventeen  of  the 
latest  pieces,  6000  horses  captured  and  some 
10,000  of  the  enemy  slain,  was  the  immediate 
result  of  the  day,  in  which  not  only  the  King 
of  Scotland  himself  fell,  but  from  which  the 
power  of  Scotland  never  completely  recovered. 

The  third  campaign,  that  of  Cromwell,  was 
similarly  decided  in  favour  of  the  southern 
forces,  and  after  a  campaign  which  followed, 
as  had  every  important  movement  into  the 
north  for  over  1500  years,  the  eastern  road. 

It  was  on  the  22nd  of  July,  1650,  that 
Cromwell  crossed  the  Tweed  with  16,000  men. 
He  passed  through  a  wasted  country  to  the 
very  neighbourhood  of  Edinburgh.     He  was 


THE  SCOTCH  WARS  251 

compelled  to  fall  back  from  lack  of  supplies, 
when  he  found  his  retreat  barred  upon  the 
English  side  of  Dunbar  at  the  point  where 
the  Broxburn  crosses  the  Berwick  Road.  At 
least,  the  Scotch  force  lying  upon  the  heights 
above  this  road  marched  down  to  attempt 
its  blockade.  It  was  before  sunrise  that  they 
made  this  movement.  It  was  not  completed 
when  the  Scotch  discovered  that  Cromwell 
had  crossed  the  Burn  in  the  night,  and  was 
turning  their  attempt  to  occupy  the  road. 
The  action  that  followed  in  the  first  hours  of 
the  day,  the  3rd  of  September,  1650,  was  so 
complete  a  destruction  of  the  Scotch  army 
as  to  put  the  Lowlands  for  the  moment  at 
the  mercy  of  Cromwell.  He  took  all  their 
artillery,  their  colours,  10,000  prisoners, 
marched  back  to  Edinburgh,  received  the 
surrender  of  its  castle  before  the  end  of  the 
month,  and  had  nothing  left  against  him  that 
winter  but  the  force  at  Stirling,  from  which 
point,  however,  in  the  succeeding  summer  of 
1651  began  the  fine  march  southward  of 
Charles  II,  which  ended  so  disastrously  at 
Worcester,  and  which  I  have  described  in 
another  place. 

Of  the  two  rebellions,  the  1715  and  the 
1745,  the  first  resulted  in  an  invasion  of  north 
England  by  a  small  Highland  force  which, 


252        WARFARE  IN  ENGLAND 

though  it  did  not  cross  the  western  hills  of 
the  Border  as  Charles  had  done  a  lifetime 
before,  actually  came  into  England  by  the 
west,  following  to  the  north  of  the  Cheviot 
and  crossing  the  Border  just  north  of  Carlisle. 
The  little  army  marched  south  into  Lancashire, 
was  caught  and  surrendered  at  Preston. 

The  1745  was  a  far  more  serious  business. 
In  the  first  place,  it  began  with  victories. 
Upon  the  21st  of  September  Prince  Charles's 
army,  which  already  had  possession  of  Edin- 
burgh, broke  the  first  English  force  sent 
against  it,  and  broke  it  in  the  first  few  moments 
of  a  successful  charge.  This  was  at  Preston 
Pans  upon  the  coast,  two  hours'  march  east 
of  the  capital.  The  subsequent  advance  into 
England  followed  much  the  same  line  that 
the  1715  had  followed,  but  with  a  larger 
though  not  considerable  force.  It  numbered 
perhaps  6000  men,  and  did  not  cross  the 
Border  until  so  late  a  date  as  the  8th  of 
December.  This  little  army  took  Carlisle, 
managed  to  march  right  down  the  north- 
western road  through  Lancashire,  got  past 
the  command  which  the  Duke  of  Cumberland 
was  leading  against  it;  it  had  nothing 
between  it  and  London  save  the  camp  at 
Finchley,  and  it  might  hope  to  count  upon 
the  apathy  at  least  of  the  southern  English 


THE  SCOTCH  WARS  253 

Midlands  and  even  of  the  capital.  But 
upon  getting  as  far  south  as  Derby,  the  lack 
of  any  positive  support  from  the  districts 
through  which  it  marched,  the  difficulty  of 
keeping  the  Highlanders  together,  and  the 
fear  of  the  much  larger  body  of  the  enemy, 
which  they  indeed  received  and  outflanked, 
but  which  if  it  should  come  up  to  them  would 
certainly  prove  their  superior,  made  a  retreat 
probably  necessary  and  certainly  advisable. 
The  Duke  of  Cumberland  followed  that 
retreat  (which  was  northward  by  the  western 
road  along  which  the  advance  had  come),  but 
never  managed,  so  rapid  was  it,  to  hold  the 
enemy  upon  this  side  of  the  Border.  Indeed, 
in  a  skirmish  near  Penrith,  his  own  force 
was  checked  by  their  rear-guard,  and,  on 
the  fifty-sixth  day  after  they  had  started 
out,  the  Scotch  army  at  the  very  end  of  the 
year  reached  Glasgow.  They  were  now  re- 
cruited by  further  levies,  including  certain 
French  contingents.  They  beat  off  the  first 
English  force  (which  found  them  at  the  siege 
of  Stirling)  on  Falkirk  Moor  on  the  17th  of 
January,  1746 ;  but  this  was  in  the  absence 
of  Cumberland,  a  really  able  man  though  a 
Hanoverian,  and  one  who  could  boast  that 
his  recent  defeat  at  Fontenoy  had  but  de- 
servedly increased  his  reputation  as  a  general. 


264        WARFARE   IN  ENGLAND 

and  especially  as  a  leader.  Meanwhile, 
Charles  failed  before  Stirling  and  retreated 
upon  Inverness.  Cumberland,  taking  com- 
mand of  the  royal  army,  pursued,  and  though 
Inverness  had  fallen  to  Charles,  that  Pre- 
tender's diminishing  force  could  not  expect  to 
meet  what  Cumberland  was  bringing  against 
it.  Cumberland  entered  Nairn  upon  the  14th 
of  April.  Charles  was  persuaded  to  stand  (in 
spite  of  his  grave  inferiority)  in  front  of  Inver- 
ness astraddle  the  Nairn  road,  upon  the  field 
of  Culloden  Moor,  and  there  his  force  of  not 
more  than  5000  men  was  destroyed  upon 
Wednesday,  April  16th,  1746.  The  most 
complex,  as  the  most  doubtful,  of  the  principal 
campaigns  involving  the  two  countries  was 
in  that  action  decided. 

No  decision  by  armed  forces  has  since  that 
day  been  attempted  within  this  island. 


NOTE   ON   BOOKS 

It  is  impossible  to  make  a  satisfactory  bibliography  of  the 
subject  for  the  general  reader,  so  scattered  are  the  materials  for 
the  elementary  history  of  Warfare  in  England,  and  even  the 
elements  of  any  particular  campaign.  The  first  volume  of 
Fortescue's  History  of  the  Army  and  Oman's  Art  of  War  in  the 
Middle  Ages  expand  certain  points  made  in  the  preceding 
chapters. 

There  are  various  sectional  histories  of  the  Civil  War — 
Godwin's  Civil  War  in  Hampshire,  Bayley's  Civil  War  in 
Dorset,  and  Broxap's  Civil  War  in  Lancashire,  Kingston's 
books  on  East  Anglia  and  Hertfordshire  at  the  same  time,  and 
Money's  work  on  the  Battles  of  Newbury.  Of  text-books  on 
English  military  history  there  are  none,  except  Fortescue's 
volume,  which  has  very  little  to  do  with  English  fighting,  and 
is  mainly  concerned  with  Continental  campaigns. 


Richard  Clay  &  Sons,  LiMrrED, 

BRUJISWICK    STREET,    STAMFORD  STRHKT,    S.E., 
AND  BUNGAY,   SUFFOLK. 


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125.  England  under  the  Tudors  and  Stuarts  KEITH  feiling 
129.  A  History  of  England,  1688-1815  E.  M.  wrong 
135.  A  History  of  England,  1815-1918  Dr.  J.  R.  M.  BUTLER 

23.  A  History  of  Our  Time,  1885-1913  G.  P.  GOOCH.  D.Litt..  f.b.a. 

33.  The    History    of    England  :     A    Study    in    Political    Evolution, 

55   B.C.-A.D.   1911  Prof.  A.  F.  pollard,  f.b.a..  D.Litt. 

100.  A  History  of  Scotland    {Revised  1929)      Prof.  Sir  ROBERT  RAIT,  LL.D. 


101. 
136. 

34. 
105. 

25. 
134. 

92. 
147. 

51. 

48. 
171. 
166. 

*3. 
t6l. 

12. 
162. 
144. 

37, 

14. 
172. 
165. 


Belgium 

The  British  Empire,  1585-1928 

Canada,  1754-1911 

Poland    (Maps).     Revised  1929 

The  Civilization  of  China 

The  Civilization  of  Japan 

Central  and  South  America  (Maps) 

The  Great  War,  1914-191 8 


R.   C.   K.   ENSOR 

Prof.  BASIL  WILLIAMS 

A.  G.  BRADLEY 

Prof.  W.  ALISON  PHILLIPS 

Prof.  H.  A.  GILES,  LL.D. 

Dr.  J.  INGRAM  BRYAN 

Prof.  W.  R.  SHEPHERD 

Maj.-Gen.  Sir  GEORGE  ASTON 


A.D 


Warfare  in  England  (Maps).  35  B.C 
The  American  Civil  War  (Maps) 
The  Huguenots 
Louis  XIV 

The  French  Revolution  (Maps) 
Napoleon  (Maps)  Rt.  Hon 

The  Opening-Up  of  Africa  (Maps) 
South  Africa,  1652-1933 
Races  of  Africa 

Peoples  and  Problems  of  India 
ThePapacyand  Modern  Times,  1303-1870  Rt.  Rev.  Mgr.w.  BARRY 
Ships  and  Seamen  GEOFFREY  RAWSON 

The  British  Anti-Slavery  Movement  Prof.  R.  COUPLAND 


1746        HILAIRE  BELLOC 

Prof.  F.  L.  PAXSON 

Prof.  A.  J.  GRANT,   D.Litt. 

DAVID   OGG,   M.A. 

HILAIRE  BELLOC 

H.  A.  L.  FISHER,  F.R.S.,  LL.D. 

Sir  HARRY  JOHNSTON 

Prof.  A.  F.  HATTERS  LEY 

Prof.  C.  G.  SELIGMAN.  F.R.S. 

Sir  T.  W.    HOLDERNESS 


167. 
76. 

43. 
27. 
141. 

146. 

87. 

95. 

♦2. 
103. 

64. 

77. 
♦70. 

89. 

73. 

45. 

52. 
177. 
J35. 

65. 

99. 
142. 
III. 
155. 


Literature 

Ancient  Greek  Literature  C  M.  BOWRA,  M.A. 

Euripides  and   His  Age  Prof.  GILBERT  MURRAY.  LL.D.,    D.Litt. 

English  Literature  :    Mediaeval  Prof.  w.  P.  KER 

English  Literature  :    Modern,  1453-1914  GEORGE  MAIR 

An  Anthology  of  English  Poetry  : 

Wyatt  to   Rochester  Compiled  by  KATHLEEN  CAMPBELL 

An  Anthology  of  English  Poetry  : 

Dryden   to   Blake  Compiled    by    KATHLEEN  CAMPBELL 

~  GRACE  HADOW 

Rt.  Hon.  J.  M.  ROBERTSON 

JOHN  MASEFIELD,  D.Litt. 

JOHN  BAILEY 

JOHN  BAILEY 

H.  N.  BRAILSFORD 

G.  K.  CHESTERTON,  LL.D. 

A.  GLUTTON  BROCK 

Prof.  W.  T.  BREWSTER 

L.  PEARSALL  SMITH 

Profs.  W.  P.  TRENT  and  J.  ERSKINE 

H.   N.   BRAILSFORD 


Chaucer  and  His  Times 

Elizabethan  Literature 

Shakespeare 

Milton 

Dr.  Johnson  and  His  Circle 

Shelley,  Godvy^in  and  their  Circle 

The  Victorian  Age  in  Literature 

William  Morris 

The  Writing  of  English 

The  English  Language 

Great  Writers  of  America 

Voltaire 

Landmarks  in  French  Literature, 

circa  1088-1896  LYTTON  STRACHEY,  LLD. 

The  Literature  of  Germany,  950-1913     Prof.  j.  G.  Robertson 
An  Outline  of  Russian  Literature  Hon.  MAURICE  baring 

The  Literature  of  Japan  Dr.  J.  INGRAM  BRYAN,  Ph.D. 

Patriotism  in  Literature  JOHN  drinkwater 

Edda  and  Saga  Dame  BERTHA  s.  phillpotts 

•Also  Crown  8vo  5/-  net  each,      t  Also  Demy  8vo  7/6  net. 
•  Also  Demy  8vo  5/-  net. 


Political  stnd  Social  Science 

148.  The  Political  Consequences  of 

the  Great  War,  1914-1918  Prof.  RAMSAY  MU!R 

96.  Political  Thought  in  England  : 

From  Bacon  to  Halifax  G.  P.  GOOCH.  D.Litt..  F.B.A. 

121.  Political  Thought  in  England  : 

From  Locke  to  Bentham  Prof.  HAROLD  j.  LASKI 

106.  Political  Thought  in  England  :   The  Utilitarians 

from  Bentham  to  J.  S.  Mill  Prof.  w.  L  DAVIDSON.  LL.D. 

104.  Political  Thought  in  England  : 

1848 -191 4.   Revised  1928  Prof.  ERNEST  BARKER,  D.Utt.,  LL.D. 

170.   Post-War   France  Prof.   PAUL  VAUCHER,   D.^sL 

143.  The  Growth  of  International  Thought                  F.  M.  stawell 

II.  Conservatism,   1510-1911  Rt.  Hon.  Lord  HUGH  CECIL 

21.  Liberalism  Prof.  L.  T.  HOBHOUSE.  Litt.D.,  LL.D. 

10.  The  Socialist  Movement,  1835-1911      j.  ramsay  macdonald 
131.  Communism,  1381  -1927  Prof.  HAROLD  J.  LASKI 

ISO.  Fascism  Major  J.  S.  BARNES 

I.  Parliament,  1295-1929  Sir  c.  p.  ILBERT 

6.  Irish    Nationality.     Revised  1929  Mrs.  J.  R.  GREEN,  D.Litt. 

30.  Elements  of  English  Law  Prof.  w.  M.  GELDART. 

Revised  1929  by  Prof.  Sir  WILLIAM  HOLDSWORTH,  LL.D. 

83.  Commonsense  in   Law  Prof.  Sir  P.  VINOGRADOFF,   D.C.L. 

163.  Town  and  Country  Planning  Prof.  PATRICK  ABERCROMBIE 

38.  The  School.     Revised    1932  Prof.  J.  J.  FINDLAY,  Ph.D. 

152.  Liquor  Control  Prof.  GEORGE  E.  G.  CATLIN,  Ph.D. 

159.  Local  Government  jOHN  P.  R.  MAUD 

168.  Broadcasting  HILDA  MATHESON 

174.   Sociology  Prof.    MORRIS   GINSBERG,    D.Litt. 

176.  Democracy  Prof,  delisle  burns.  M.A.,  D.Litt. 


Religion  and  Philosophy 

139  Jesus  of  Nazareth  BISHOP  GORE 

157.  Christianity  EDWYN  BEVAN,  D.Litt. 

68.  Comparative  Religion  Prof.  J.  ESTLIN  CARPENTER,  LL.D. 

84.  The  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament  Prof.  F.  MOORE,  D.D.,  LL.D, 
56.  The  Making  of  the  New  Testament  Prof.  B.  W.  BACON.  LLD. 
94.  Religious  Development  between 

the  Old  and  New  Testaments        Canon  R.  H.  CHARLES,  D.Litt. 
90.  The  Church  of  England,  596-1900  Canon  E,  w.  WATSON 

50.  Nonconformity,   1566-1910  Principal  W.  B.  SELBIE 

15.  Mohammedanism  Prof.  D.  S.  MARGOLIOUTH,  D.Litt. 

47.  Buddhism.      Revised  1934  Mrs.  RHYS  DAVIDS 

60.  Missions,  A.D.  313-1910  Mrs.  CREIGHTON 

74.  A  History  of  Freedom  of  Thought  j.  B.  bury 

102.  A  History  of  Philosophy  to  1910  Prof.  CLEMENT  C.  J.WEBB,  F.B.A. 

40.  Problems  of  Philosophy  BERTRAND  RUSSELL,  F.R.S. 

178.  Religion  and  Science  BERTRAND  RUSSELL.  F.R.S. 

54.  Ethics  .  Prof.  G.  E.  MOORE,  Lltt.D. 

175.    Practical    Ethics  Rt.   Hon.   Sir   HERBERT  SAMUEL 

181.  Recent  Philosophy  JOHN  laird,  f.b.a. 


Science 

179.  Science  in  Antiquity  Prof.  B.  farrington 
32.  An  introduction  to  Science. 

Revised  1928  Prof.  Sir  J.  ARTHUR  THOMSON.  LL.D. 

46.  Matter  and  Energy  Prof.  F.  soddy,  f.r.s. 

62.  The  Origin  and  Nature  of  Life  Prof,  benjamin  moore 

20.  Evolution  Profs.  Sir  J.  A.  THOMSON  and  Sir  P.  GEDDES 

138.  Life  of  the  Cell  D.  landsborough  Thomson,  ph.d. 

145.  The  Atom  Prof.  G.  p.  THOMSON 

115.  Biology     {Illustrated)  Profs.  Sir  J.  A.  THOMSON  and  Sir  P.  GEDDES 
110.  Heredity  (illustrated)  Prof.  E.  W.  MACBRIDE.  D.Sc. 

44.  Principles  of  Physiology  Prof.  j.  G.  McKENDRICK. 

Revised  1928  by  Prof.  J.  A.  MacWILLIAM.  F.R.S. 

180.  Sex  Dr.  B.  P.  WIESNER 

41.  Anthropology  R.  R.  marett,  d.Sc. 

57.  The  Human    Body  Prof.  Sir  ARTHUR  KEITH,  F.R.S.,  F.R.C.S. 

120.  Eugenics  Prof.  A.  M.  CARR  SAUNDERS 

17.  Health  and  Disease  Sir  LESLIE  Mackenzie,  m.d. 
128.  Sunshine  and  Health  R.  CAMPBELL  MACFIE.  LL.D. 

116.  Bacteriology     (illustrated)  Prof.  CARL  H.  BROWNING.  F.R.S. 
119.  Microscopy     (Illustrated)  ROBERT  M.  NEILL 

79.  Nerves.     Revised  1928  Prof.  D.  FRASER  HARRIS,  M.D. 

49.  Psychology.      XlXth    Impression,   with   Special   Preface    1937 

Prof.  W.  McDOUGALL,  F.R.S. 

28.  Psychical  Research,  1882-1911  Sir  w.  f.  Barrett,  f.r.s. 

164.  Psycho-Analysis  and  its  Derivatives  Dr.  H.  CRICHTON-miller 

22.  Crime  and  Insanity  Dr.  c.  A.  MERCIER 

19.  The  Animal  World   (Illustrated)  Prof.  F.  W.  gamble,    F.R.S. 

130.  Birds                                                       Dr.  A.  LANDSBOROUGH  THOMSON 

133.  Insects  F.  BALFOUR  BROWNE 

126.  Trees  Dr.  MacGREGOR  SKENE 

9.  The  Evolution  of  Plants  Dr.  D.  H.  SCOTT 

72.  Plant  Life     (Illustrated)  Prof.  Sir  J.  B.  FARMER,  D.Sc,  F.R.S. 

132.  The  Evolution  of  a  Garden  E.  H.  M.  cox 

18.  An  Introduction  to  Mathematics 

Prof.  A.  N.  WHITEHEAD,  D.Sc.  F.R.S. 
31.  Astronomy,   circa  1860-1911.      Revised  1936  A.  R.  HINKS,  F.R.S. 

160.  Wireless  Dr.  W.  H.  ECCLES,  F.R.S. 

67.  Chemistry  Prof.  Raphael  meldola,  d.Sc, 

Second  Revise  1932  by  Prof.  ALEXANDER  FINDLAY,  D.Sc. 
173.    Physics  Prof.   A.   S.    EVE.    D.Sc.    F.R.S. 

122.  Gas  and    Gases   (Illustrated)  Prof.  R.  M.  CAVEN,  D.Sc 

78.  The  Ocean  Sir  JOHN  Murray 

53.  The  Making  of  the  Earth  Prof.  j.  w.  GREGORY 

88.  The  Geological  Grov^th  of  Europe  Prof.  GRENVILLE  A.  j.  COLE 

154.  Man's  Influence  on  the  Earth  R.  L.  SHERLOCK,  D.Sc. 

151.  Volcanoes  Dr.  G.  w.  tyrrell 

36.  Climate  and   Weather    (Illustrated)  Prof.  H.  N.  DICKSON.  D.Sc 

127.  Motors  and  Motoring  (illustrated)  E.  T.  BROWN 
183.  Human  Nutrition  and  Diet                           Dr.w.  R.  aykroyd 

Complete  List  up  to  December  1936.     New  titles  will  be  added  yearly. 


APR  2  9  1993 


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